Week 4 Wrap Up

I've tried a lot of new tools this week, and I've tried some familiar tools in new ways. There's been some reading and researching, and a lot of thinking about how to engage this technology with students. So I thought I'd take a little time just to reflect on what's worked and what hasn't.

In Favor

• VoiceThread
• From the beginning I enjoyed that our "lectures" were in this platform rather than reading PowerPoint slides. The shorter format, combined with audio recording, and ability to interact was very appealing to me.
• Creating my own was a little intimidating, but shockingly, I still really like this platform. I can see myself using VoiceThread for online lectures and will try to find ways to use it at work. It was very simple to navigate, so ease of use always helps me feel comfortable, but I do enjoy the different ways it allows learner to engage.
• Pearltrees
• Unlike some of the other curation sites, I find this one to be helpful for academic curation. I think it seems very easy, and I like having a space where I can curate the articles and resources I'm using for school in a separate place from articles I want to read for fun. This also helps me save things that someday I may want to be able to go back and find, without having to try and save url's or other ways I might have tried to save information in the past.
• I can see this being a good tool for group projects and class assignments where everyone needs to be finding resources. An alternative to Pinterest.
• Nuclino
• At first it took my a few tries to understand how to add content and format content on Nuclino, which I was not a fan of (as I mentioned, I prefer user-friendly) but once I figured it out I do prefer that they have some nice formatting which allows you to make font larger and add headings etc.
• I think the layout, interface, ease of use, overall appearance is so much nicer than a Wiki page. Maybe I'm biased never having been a Wiki user, but Nuclino seems so clean compared to Wiki's.

Not Sure/Not Enjoying

• Diigo
• While I did find Diigo much easier to post on than I originally thought, I'm still not 100% sure how I feel about it. I can see how it definitely has some positive contributions and why it would be useful, but the visual aspects of it do not appeal to me. I think when possible, I would find it easier to be in Canvas or a platform like that versus Diigo, but would love to hear others' experiences on how it has been beneficial for them.
• Fakebook
• Checked this one out, I can see how this might be cute to use with young elementary school children. I think anyone older than probably 4th grade would probably think it was silly. There seem like there are probably better platforms or apps to achieve the same learning outcomes though.

Seem Interesting, Not Sure Sow I Would Use Them

• myHistro
• This looked very neat. I reviewed some different battles and timelines. It's a very cool idea that people share these projects. I'm not sure how I would incorporate this site but I think there's some value in a lot of the concepts here. Plus, I enjoy history so on a different note I did think it was fun to read some of them.
• Duolingo
• Practiced my German on this one. Established a profile here. I always enjoy good quality language sites. I don't know how this would be integrated into my current role, but it's always helpful to know of these resources.

I'm glad I've had the chance to try out some of these new tools and to expand on what I've been doing with some tools I've been using. I'm looking forward to continuing to think about how to implement them with different populations. Any tools I've missed that you've really loved or didn't really enjoy?