The Assignment:
Spend some time exploring articles and Web 2.0 Classroom tools that highlight educational strategies and introduce differentiated learning activities for students. What tools best align with the instructional goals associated with a progressive, online learning environment? Are the tools innovative, user-friendly, and representative of higher level thinking?
Fire and foremost, just about any open-ended task is already differentiated because students have the luxury of making meaning and making sense of the material in their own, personalized way. An open-ended task can be almost any Web 2.0 tool.
Animoto is great if you want students to create a video that relates to content. Or, open-ended discussion questions or blogs are also open-ended tasks where students can draft their ideas. Any free blog sites like Blogger or Schoology or Edmodo are great for these types of tools. Wikis are also excellent.
I recommend Google Docs for drafting essays and research papers because the Google Docs sharing mechanism makes it great for the teacher to follow students' processes for piecing together papers.
Storybird is great for getting students to create their own book with illustrations. I actually use Issuu for materials similar to this concept. Storybird seems somewhat elementary, but it may be a great tool for having high school students convert abstract concepts into more simplistic ideas.
I use Noodletools ($60) to help implement differentiation with the research paper process. But, this resource is not free! It is great for higher order thinking activities and deep research activities. I integrate it with Google Docs to create an authentic learning experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment