Simple Communication Tools

Cross-posted at November Learning.

This is a follow up to my blog post at the end of November urging educators to improve communication with their students and their families. I contend that publishing basic class information gives parents a window into your classroom and helps students get digitally organized. It’s now easier than ever as a plethora of tools exist to help people publish without a lot of technical steps. Creating and maintaining a class web site also does not have to be a time consuming chore.

Now that holidays are over and schools are back in session, perhaps now is a good time to explore a few tool recommendations.  The following are a few that are popular with educators; start playing with one tool that appeals to you and see where it leads!

One method of publishing is through bloggling. Blogs are made up of a series of linear posts.  The following blogging tools share many of the same features which include posting by visiting their website, through mobile devices or by emailing posts. They have design templates which are generally customizable and support the embedding of media such as links, photos, and videos. A few to try are:

• Blogger
• Edublogs
• Glogster
• Posterous
• Tumblr
• Weebly

Many teachers prefer wikis which are easily editable web pages. Wikis tend to provide more flexibility than blogs in terms of design. Most wiki providers give you a choice of templates and allow for the embedding of widgets which provide additional functionality. For instance, if you are a Google Docs user, you can embed documents in a Wikispaces wiki or you could use Google’s own wiki tool, Google Sites, to do the same thing. While you can usually assign multiple authors to a blog to create individual posts, wikis are better suited for collaborative purposes as you can invite others to edit your entire wiki. A few wiki services to try are:

• Google Sites
• PBworks
• Wikispaces

To see how other teachers are using blogs and wikis, browse through the nominations and winners of the 2010 Edublog Awards and through CASTLE’s list of blogs by discipline and wikis.

Keep in mind that Blogger and Google Sites can be used by themselves or within Google Apps Education Edition if your school has adopted this platform. Wikispaces and PBWorks also offer no cost ad-free wikis to educators and Glogster also has a version for educators. Edublogs is also geared towards school audiences. Education versions of Web 2.0 tools usually give you more security options so that students can use them as well.

Edmodo is another tool worth a look and it defies categorization as a blog or wiki. Designed specifically for schools, Edmodo promotes the concept of micro-blogging and teachers can post easily to their Edmodo space on the web or using a mobile device. Calendars, assignments, links, files, and polls can be shared with students. Groups can be created, and educators can also connect to colleagues.

The selected resources mentioned in this blog post were picked for purely their ease of use and my intention was not to create an overwhelming list that might be interpreted as intimidating. However,  if you are interested in trying additional tools, read on.

Via Twitter, I asked other educators for suggestions of simple to use publishing tools and VoiceThread, Animoto, Wallwisher, and Audioboowere mentioned. Also, Larry Ferlazzo recommends various tools within his great list of his blog posts geared toward tech novices.

If you have any additional tools or strategies that you recommend, share them in the comments of this blog!

 

Comments

[Nina Wells]

Thank you for this wonderful information on blogging. I am an Ed.D student at Walden University and we just had an semester long assignment on blogging. Your recoomendations are very helpful.

[Rachel Littler]

Thank you for posting this article about blogs and other technology that can be used in the classroom. I am an Education student at Malone University and I am currently taking a course about instructional technology. We are currently keeping our own blogs about our thoughts and ideas about different uses of technology within a classroom. I find working on a blog to be very easy and my experience of maintiaing my blog has opened up my eyes about using a blog with my future classroom. I agree with you that as a teacher, keeping a blog (or even a classroom wiki) can be a very effective resource to both the teacher and the students, and even the parents.

Thank you also for posting a number of helpful links that will all come in handy when I begin to create my classroom blog or wiki in my future classroom. Overall, I believe communication is essential in a classroom, and with the way technology is changing and how students learn is changing, we as educators must be prepared to adjust our teaching methods to meet the needs of our students. Blogs and wikis are just the way to go. Thank you again for your helpful thoughts!