Diigo vs Pinterest

Diigo is a social bookmarking site which allows users to save links to various websites. This can allow a teachers to set up a list of sites for students to use on a certain project or given a certain focus. When you have a large number of sites, it is easier to use Diigo in many instances because of their use of tags. Students are much more likely to find useful information if they are to search for "Gettysburg" vs "The Civil War." Being able to filter is a huge advantage in this context.

Pinterest allows for a much more visual representation of the material in which you are searching. I think that if a student were to pull up both a Pinterest page and a Diigo page containing the same information, more students would use the Pinterest page due to its visual nature. I think that by creating a medium where students feel that what they're doing is less like work and more like a game, they are more likely to become engaged in the material. Engaged students are more likely to spend more time with the material and, in turn, learn more about the topic.

Other differences include: being able to comment directly on Pinterest posts while this is not necessarily possible on all Diigo posts, the ability to add your commentary directly to your posts on Diigo (via the description you create), the ability to private message those you are following on Diigo, and the ability to automatically find articles related to whatever you have searched on Pinterest. Both sites allow me to follow others, as well as be followed back. 

While I feel that for a student like myself, a Diigo would be more effective, for younger students, Pinterest would be a better option. Depending on the context, I can see either being useful to me in the future.

The Ever-Changing Classroom is the Same as it's Always Been

The video Educational Change Challenge talks about the movement from lecture to education reform. When you look at the what we've learned in the last 100 years, the way we've been teaching has not kept up with the times. Being able to connect with your students can be incredibly advantageous in creating a learning environment that can benefit everyone. It's true that not all students learn at the same pace or in the same way. Creating technology that can meet these different student's needs may be key to education in the future.

The video Networked Student talks about a teacher that took a constructivist approach to learning. The idea is that students will learn by making connections with ideas that they have already learned. Rather than lecturing, the teacher allows the students to explore the newest ideas, rather than learning in traditional methods. While this is good in theory, the way it is described seems to miss the necessary direction that you may need if you are totally unfamiliar with the topic. This method also may cause students to become sidetracked more often than if they were in a traditional classroom setting, even if they think that their focus is in the correct area.

Blogs in Classrooms

Blogs can have a variety of uses within ESL classrooms. Students who are ESL may have difficulty expressing themselves to teachers. For many, it can be difficult to understand a foreign language unless they have had a lot of practice with it. You can learn to read and write very proficiently in a language, yet still have difficulty speaking it. Blogs can be an outlet these students. Through blogs, teachers and students can have a meaningful interaction without having verbal communication. This can allow the teacher to understand the student better, and vice versa, leading to a greater understanding of the material. This serves to support Grade 5-8 Standard 1, performance indicator 7: "Present information clearly in a variety of oral and written forms for different audiences and purposes related to all academic content areas."

Teachers can also use blogs as an accessory to their teaching. If students need extra practice, teachers can post materials on their blogs that students can access from anywhere. Teachers can also post notes, videos, slides, and other materials they may think are beneficial to student learning. Many students learn more effectively through multimodal lesson plans. This serves to enhance students understanding of material as well as helping prevent students from falling behind if they miss class.