LL6 - Learning Tools

1. Skype
2. I chose Skype for a few reasons. I have heard so much about it recently from many of my friends, either ones studying abroad or those still in Gainesville, that I wanted to check it out. Plus, my boyfriend and I web cam all the time, but it is a fairly inconsistent program, so I thought that this might be a good solution.
3. I think the biggest advantage to using Skype in the classroom would be the opportunity for students to communicate with other students around the world. When I was in elementary school, we had pen pals by writing letters. Now, students can get on Skype and either IM or video chat with other students. If they are trying to learn each others' languages, this could be of great assistance. With such advantageous technology in our grasp, why not use it? A huge advantage to Skype is that most aspects of it are free and applicable to life at home as well. Teachers can educate students in online safety and how to use Skype, and then they can chat with friends, family, and "pen pals" from home.
4. One problem I could forsee with Skpe would be internet security. If students were to get on it at home, or even at school without the correct supervision, they could run into online predators. Students might be able to access the parts of Skype you have to pay for, but I'm sure the school can put blocks on that. Since "sexting" is such a problem in schools now, using Skype for similar activity might be an issue in the future.

1. iTunes
2. I chose iTunes because, although I have used it a lot for my personal music collection, I had never really thought about how it could be used in the classroom.
3. I was discussing the use of iTunes with my dad, and he is quite the intellectual. He said that he has been using iTunes for a while to download lectures from different universities on topics he is interested in. I had never explored this feature, and it is actually really neat. It's nice that if students want the opportunity to get more information about something they're interested in, they can do it here. This is called iTunes U. Teachers can use this in order to brush up on certain topics, too.
4. The information would be over the heads of a lot of students, but in upper level high school classes it could be used, especially for students who are bored in their regular classes.

1. SurveyMonkey
2. SurveyMonkey is another tool that I've used personally but never really considered using in a classroom. My friends have used it a lot for personal quizzes.
3. As a teacher, I could use this tool to create surveys for students. They could either be just used as an assessment early in a unit to see what I need to focus on, or to see if students like certain things about my teaching methods. It could also be used to determine what topics are of most interest to students, if they have a choice in what I am teaching.
4. SurveyMonkey could be used by students to create hurtful surveys about classmates. As long as the work students do on the site is monitored, I don't think this would be a problem.