Week 7

Today in class my group gave a presentation on online learning communities. I think that these online learning communities are a great idea! I think that they really do improve a students learning and understanding of the material. I also think that all students who have the opportunity in college to be in a learning community should seize the opportunity. It is a great way for students to meet other students who are in the same major as them and just help them makes friends their first semester in college. I know that I am still friends with most of the people that were in my learning community. A learning community is a little different than an online learning community though. Basically the only difference is that is just online. We also learned how to make a voice thread. It was a very cool technique to use and I really enjoyed using it. It was a little confusing at first but once you got the hang of it it really wasn't all that bad. 


I do not think that I can actually use it in my classroom because that defeats the purpose of it being an online learning community but I could use it outside of the classroom in a sense that the students use it to interact with each other. One example of a online learning tool is Facebook the students could use Facebook to interact with each other about homework or whatever they may need help with. I'm also not sure how I could voicethread if my classroom either but I can totally see how other teachers could use them especially English teachers. 

Some of the ISTE standards we used as teachers today are:  

•  Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments: We learned a new way to incorporate technology to enhance the students learning and understanding.
• Model Digital-Age Work and Learning: We learned how to use technology in a new way.

Some of the ISTE standards we used as students today are:

• Creativity and Innovation: We applied our existing knowledge of technology to learn something new.
• Communication and Collaboration: We had to work with our group in order to create a voicethread.