Le Debut

e-insightsep15

Al Upton has been very vocal in the positive aspects of using technology in the classroom. In this interview for E-learning Insights he discusses the success that his class has had using blogging as a learning tool. The simple truth is that students are already on-line. They share their lives, interact with peers and they have personal spaces on a range of different web-sites. Despite teachers perhaps not being as technologically savvy as their students what they can offer is their life skills and wisdom. They need to direct the students to make correct choices about the way they use the internet and ensure that they are learning from the tasks that they are doing. Teachers should not be afraid to let go of control and allow the students to teach them something. Another important aspect of blogging or publishing work on the internet is that the students now have an audience for their work and therefore take pride in what they are doing and are more motivated to do the work. It is inspiring to hear Al Upton talk about the enthusiasm his students had for their blog project both before and after the project took place. He also mentioned a tool called voicethread which is amazing. It is a great way to safely collaborate on projects either with people in the same class or members of Ed.voicethread. I googled it to find out more and am really looking forward to using it in class.