u02a2 - Edmodo, Prezi and Symbaloo - Their role in today's classrooms

There are a number of web 2.0 tools that are gaining much popularity in the education landscape.  Web 2.0 tools are often free and allow teachers to interact with students in ways that go beyond the classroom.  These web 2.0 tools allow teachers to take advantage of social networking technologies, new methods of being creative and keeping all these technologies organized.  

I will be exploring three tools that are becoming more embedded in classrooms at all levels.  Edmodo, Prezi and Symbaloo are offering new, innovative and free ways to work with students.  

Edmodo

http://www.edmodo.com

This social networking site for educators is quickly becoming known as the "Facebook for educators".  Edmodo has over 20,000,000 users connecting teachers and students all over the world (About Edmodo).  This site is popular with teachers, schools and school districts due to the way that teachers and students connect in a social network type of environment.  Unlike other social networking sites, Edmodo does not allow for student to student communication, the site only allows for users to communicate within the class.  Teachers can very easily create a "group" in Edmodo.  These groups are what teachers would invite students to "join".  The teacher provides a "group code" so that only students within that class are invited to join.  This allows teachers to create different "groups" for different classes (i.e. 1st period, 2nd period, etc.).  Once a student joins this group, they can only communicate with the entire class.  This provides a safer environment for students and provides piece of mind for teachers, parents and administrators when it comes to using social networking in a classroom setting.  Teachers also have the ability to moderate all posts adding another level of filtering and safety for students.  Teachers can share links to websites and files, as well as, offering an environment to dialogue with their classes in a virtual space.  While Edmodo isn't as robust as some Learning Management Systems (LMS) it does offer an easy way for teachers to create a social networking environment for their students, which is very popular with today's student.  

Prezi

http://www.prezi.com

When it comes to creativity in the classroom, many teachers now have the opportunity to move away from presentation tools like Powerpoint and Keynote and begin using online presentation tools like Prezi.  Like many other web 2.0 tools, Prezi offers a free version to educators, but this resource offers other attractive features to teachers in the classroom.  Prezi is a "non linear" presentation tool, so unlike slides that go from one to another, teachers and students can utilize a "blank canvas" environment to present their ideas.  In talking with teachers, most students are burned out on powerpoints and Prezi offers a new look at content that is exciting to students and adults alike.  When I use Prezi, often times I'm asked as much about the presentation tool as I am the content of my presentation.  Prezi offers another feature that is attractive to the classroom, the ability to collaborate on a presentation.  This feature provides students the opportunity to work on a project in real time from different workstations, even if that is from outside the classroom.  Access to presentations from any computer / tablet with an internet connection is another advantage that teachers appreciate.  There is no more need to carry around thumb drives or remember where the most current version of the presentation is located.  

Symbaloo

http://www.symbaloo.com

One of the biggest challenges to educators working in the world of web 2.0 resources is managing all of the resources.  Teachers have always had to come up with ways to organize content, find new content, remember when to use new resources the following school year, etc.  The new methods of educational curating are highly social and provide a more robust quality and quantity of resources (Swanson).  Symbaloo is one web 2.0 tool that will provide organization to a world of resources that can be overwhelming.  This resource provides a teacher with the ability to link all of their websites that are most commonly used into a "webmix" by creating individual "tiles" on the screen.  These tiles can be moved and categorized by area on the screen, colored background, etc.  Teachers could create a series of webmixes based on different classes they teach, subjects, topics or projects.  Schools or school districts could also create a Symbaloo webmix to provide quick links to all the systems that educators use in their professional lives.  Symbaloo also provides a social aspect to this tool.  Users can share their webmixes with the world.  This way, teachers who want to collaborate with other teachers can share their webmixes on various topics.  Teachers can also search for other webmixes created by educators and then save them for use with their own colleagues or students.  

These three web 2.0 tools are only a very small number of all the great tools that are out there.  While it may be overwhelming to consider all of these great resources, the key is to try using at least one of them.  Once you try one resource, it will generate discussion with other educators and lead to other ways to use the resource or possibly a better web 2.0 tool for doing the same job.  In the end, these tools can make our lives more efficient as educators and it helps to engage our students who are native to this digital world.  

Citations:
About Edmodo. (n.d.). Retrieved July 7, 2013, from Edmodo: http://www.edmodo.com/about/

Swanson, K. (n.d.). Curation for Professional Learning. Retrieved July 2, 2013, from http://www.scribd.com: http://www.scribd.com/doc/98582279/Kirsten-Swanson-Curation-For-Professional-Learning