Elementary Teachers, I Need Your Advice

I’m providing professional development at an elementary school this week. I’ve been asked to survey some of the most commonly used Web 2.0 technologies in elementary classrooms. I’m very curious what others are using in their classrooms as I prepare this workshop. Please, please, please share the tools and services that you and your students recommend. I’ll compile and share the results along with related resources and examples on the workshop wiki.

Appreciatively,
Clif

Published by

Clif

Clif Mims is a Christian, husband, father, teacher, cancer warrior, and fan of the Mississippi State Bulldogs and Memphis Grizzlies.

9 thoughts on “Elementary Teachers, I Need Your Advice”

  1. We’ve been using Google Apps for the past 12 months for our Key Stage 2 (grade 2 to 5) email, website creation and doc collaboration. Lots of schools I’m in touch with are doing similar things with Apps and are similarly positive – the possibilities are already great and new services are being added all the time.

    Other technologies we’re keen on are:

    – Google Earth / Maps
    – Kerpoof
    – Picnik
    – Sodaplay
    – Voicethread

  2. I work with elementary gifted students – grades 1-6. We’ve used Moodle very successfuly, and have done a lot of work with Podcasting. We create on Garageband and have uploaded to Gcast and our own web site. Probably will switch this year.

    Learning in Hand – for podasting ideas and other tool ideas

    Wikispaces

    For myself, Plurk, google tools a must.

  3. I would recommend 3 things. Voicethread, blogging, and Kerpoof!
    Voicethread is great for the really young elementary kids because it can all be audio – no writing required for those kindergarten kids!

    Blogging is something I start with my k-2 kids. We start by leaving comments on my classroom blog at http://www.mrsmuench.com. It’s a great opportunity to talk about what makes a great comment and some internet safety. In 2nd and 3rd grade we begin to transition to making individual student blog entries.

    Kerpoof! is a program for digital story-telling. It’s free and you can make a logon for each student. Our 2nd graders are addicted to it!
    .-= Brenda Muench´s last blog ..Mentor Training Day 1 =-.

  4. I am a 4th grade teacher in North Carolina, and these are the tools my students use most frequently…

    Edmodo (for reflection, sharing and questioning)
    Wordpress (http://kellyhines.wordpress.com)
    PB Works (http://hineshelpers.pbworks.com)
    Spelling City (to easily create customizable spelling reviews)
    Discovery Education Network (for planning, sharing & great ideas)

    For professional use/guidance, I most use…
    Twitter (for everything)
    My RSS feed (to aggregate my favorite writers)
    Nings (like NECC and Classroom 2.0 – to gain ideas & perspective)
    .-= Kelly Hines´s last blog ..Relay for Life: We Did It! =-.

  5. Tools that I currently use with my students are blogs and a class wiki.

    For the wiki, I was using PBWorks and recently migrated to Wikispaces. Both are excellent for elementary classes, though.

    For blogging, I have used Class Blogmeister (excellent security and control features for classroom setup, but awkward interface for students) and recently switched to Edublogs (very full featured, better interface, but student accounts must have email addresses).

    Finally, I’m exploring Diigo as a tool for maintaining links and online resources for my class, but haven’t actually used it with students yet.
    .-= Gerald Aungst´s last blog ..Lessons in Responsibility from Spider-Man, Part 2 =-.

Comments are closed.