Skip to main content

7 Post 3: Tool Exploration

 This week, I spent some time exploring two of the tools from the list that I had never heard of before. Those tools were Piazza, and Hypothes.is. Piazza was a great tool to learn about as it provided an interactive space for teachers, students, and other relevant affiliates to interact on one platform. I love the informal aspect of this tool as it showed the participants exchanging information, such as questions and answers relevant to what they needed help with. This platform is helpful in that it provides a normal space outside the classroom and unspoken email etiquette that is usually needed to communicate with professors or others. 

Hypothesis was another interesting tool focusing on the writing aspect in education as it has to do with annotation. I can see how this type of tool would be beneficial in helping students understand complex material while also providing commentary as the text progresses. This tool would be especially helpful in getting reviews and ideas for continuous changes in papers that may need editing. At the same time, I think only a handful of students would probably participate if they knew everyone would be contributing. I'm not sure how this would be controlled in a way that prevents some students from taking advantage of the annotations from others. Professionally, though, this tool seems to be great for collaboration amongst colleagues or other researchers. 

Knowing that these tools exist, I am surprised that I have not seen them used in some of the classes I have taken in Higher Education. 

Comments

  1. Thanks for the recap of these tools! I agree with you. I am surprised that these are not more widely used in higher education settings. They have some great features! I have learned so many new tools this semester. I need to create a list so I don't forget about them!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is Social Media a Practical Method for Learning?

 In this week's readings, one of the articles I read was about the case study done on high school students and how they use social media platforms for informal learning. The article, titled "Teens and Social Media: A Case Study of High School Students’ Informal Learning Practices and Trajectories," found that students can potentially learn through non-traditional methods, such as social media when it aligns with their interests. The primary themes found within the research were that there are three sorts of informal learning that include "career/future planning, entrepreneurship, and hobbies" (baggy et al. 242).These themes came as no surprise as we are aware that there are algorithms on social media for a reason. However, it was interesting to see career planning as one of the main ones that came up.  When I think about the concept of learning through social media, I think more about entrepreneurship and hobbies. There have been several instances where people h...

Thoughts on Digital Natives

As someone who grew up in the Caribbean, I had very little interaction with technology until I moved to the United States. Things like television, cell phones, and even running water and power were very limited as I grew up in the country side. When my family and I first migrated to this country, it was a culture shock for many reasons. However, I was surprised by the amount of technology that was readily available to everyone and how accessible it all seemed to be.  Now, a digital native is described as someone who has grown up surrounded with technology and is able to utilize all sorts of technological devices (Prencky, 2001). As someone who had to immerse themselves and learn how to use many of the devices, I can now say that I would count as a digital a digital immigrant. Despite the fact that I did not grow with it from a young age, I think I am technologically fluent enough to be considered as part of the digital native group. However, the immigrant fits me more as When it co...

7 Post 2: Take Aways from "Tweet me, message me, like me..." Article

 The "Tweet me, message me, like me..." article looks at how social media can help teachers improve their skills or switch up the way they teach. The article mentions social medias like Facebook and Twitter allow teachers to stay connected and get feedback outside of school, which helps them keep learning and growing. Facilitators, or guides, play a key role by supporting teachers, encouraging a sense of community, and helping them stick with new teaching methods through regular online interactions. Using social media for professional development should be optional, as not everyone is comfortable with it. However, I think it is still important to have people use social media to learn the basic functions as it is being utilized more in society. There are other ways to stay in touch, like emails primarily or even phone calls. Since everyone is not comfortable using all types of social media, building trust online will be important. In the article, it was concluded that facilita...