Edmodo: Teacher Networking

edmodo.com

“Edmodo helps connect all learners with the people and resources needed to reach their full potential,” (Edmodo). While the site looks very much like Facebook, it is a networking site strictly for teachers and students. There are many features including ways to connect with students (such as posting assignments, quizzes, and alerts), a library of bookmarked resources, as well as opportunities to connect with other teaching professionals in specific content areas. For example, I am able to collaborate with other World Language teachers as a member of this social network group (or “community”). Members often post questions, share resources and ideas for language teaching, and post links to articles or other relevant content. It is user-friendly and a great way to get connected! 

Stitching Your Network

George Siemens uses the term Connectivism to refer to a network-learning model. He explains that knowledge changes and becomes obsolete; therefore, “what we know today is not as important as our ability to stay current,” (The Network is the Learning). Siemens continues that how we are connected is how we stay current; essentially our networks allow us to continue to learn knowledge that is constantly changing and evolving. He even goes as far as stating that learning happens by forming networks – and this is aided by technology. He concludes that “Connectivism provides insight into learning skills and tasks needed for learners to flourish in a digital era,” (Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age).  

With Siemens’ Connectivist view in mind, the learner of today can be likened to a quilter. A quilter pieces together different fabrics (sources), and constantly adds to the complexity of her design (network). She is always forming and adding more squares, as the quilt continuously grows and changes shape. Her stitches form the connections between the vast pieces available, and her sewing machine (technology) speeds up the process with ease. She needs more than just knowledge of what her materials and tools are; she also needs to know where to access them and how to use them (skills).

Clicking through the chaos

With all of the online resources and the abundant information available on the Internet, we have reached overload. Depending on your search, you may end up with hundreds or thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of results. You then have to filter and sort. Ah! That moment when you find something useful! But now you have used all of your time to find it…you need to reference it later.

Bookmarking online is nothing new; however there have been some serious advances in how it’s organized. Two helpful websites are Diigo and Scoop.it. These sites allow you to not only save and organize links to pages you wish to revisit, but they also allow you to follow and share your bookmarks with others. Although Diigo is referred to as “social bookmarking” and Scoop.it is considered “social media curation,” the overall function of the two is quite comparable.

Diigo allows you to create a library (list) of saved websites. When you add a site you are able to write a description and also add multiple tags to help you easily locate that page or particular topic in the future. Diigo also has a highlighting and notes feature that allows you to easily reference specifics from the site. The “social” aspect of this bookmarking tool comes in when you follow other Diigo users. You can access others’ libraries that you specifically follow under the “My Network” tab as well as browse on the “Community” tab. The “My Groups” tab allows you to collaborate and form lists of sites with other users about a shared topic. Diigo provides organization, collaboration and suggestions.

Scoop.it has similar functions (with different names) but a very different layout. Instead of one main library you create “topics” and “scoop” pages relevant to those topics. It is definitely a much more visual organization, allowing you to see little icons or photos from the site as well as the first few lines on the site, the curator’s (your) insight and others’ comments. Scoop.it also features tags, plus you are able to filter your scoops by keywords. Again you can follow other users and “re-scoop” their scoops to your own topics. There are also extensive lists of suggestions about your topics available to browse. Scoop.it adds visual and personal comments to organization and recommendations.

Both sites have their strengths; Diigo appears better for overall organization and easy access (by looking up tags or using lists) whereas Scoop.it seems to be better for browsing related articles and websites. I prefer the layout and organization of Diigo and think that I will continue to use it to save and organize my online Spanish teaching resources. 

"One-World" Schoolhouse

How much has education changed from the Industrial Age to the Information Age to…tomorrow?

While advances in technology continue daily, advances in education seem to lag behind about a century. The education professionals and innovators featured in the Future Learning Documentary (2012) give greater insight into the already apparent backwards US education system of today. Sugata Mitra, Professor of Educational Technology at Newcastle University, UK, explains that education stemmed from war and military education goals. We are continuing to use an industrial mode of thinking that requires quiet and submission, a system designed to produce copies. This short documentary highlights many of the major issues the field faces today: motivation, purpose, engagement, and relevance. How can these be addressed in the 21^st century foreign language classroom?

Las Redes Sociales

Two words: social media. The Social Media Revolution (2011) quotes author and keynote speaker Erik Qualman, stating, “we don't have a choice on whether we DO social media, the question is how well we DO it." Social media is certainly not the only option, but it is no longer optional. What better way to make learning Spanish, French, Russian, Mandarin, or any other target language relevant than by building connections and relationships with speakers of those languages? And what easier way to accomplish this than through social media?

Darren Cannell explains in the Educational Change Challenge (2010) that teachers must understand their [students’] culture in order to have credibility. He also expresses that we must “use it [technology] or lose it [relevance].” Students and educators need to not only see technology as a valuable learning tool, but as a necessary one. It is an essential part of students’ culture; it affects the way they acquire information, write and communicate with each other, and understand the world. Although society may not have a clear vision of what school is for (Educational Change Challenge), youth have a crystal clear one of what technology is for: discovery, play, entertainment, and communication. “Social media is about people,” (Social MediaRevolution) anywhere, using any language. There will be much less to translate once we fully tap into our students’ language and culture and bring our foreign language classrooms up to speed with today’s technology.

The world is our classroom.

Students are being educated in a totally different world than that in which the system was created – and they are being prepared for an unknown world that does not yet exist. Foreign languages are far less "foreign" with speakers just a tag, comment or Skype call away. We have come from a one-room to a one-world schoolhouse (Cisco Systems in Educational Change Challenge), an exciting change that opens up vast opportunities for foreign language education of today – and tomorrow!