Connectivism and Social Learning in Practice

This week's resources talk about social learning theories and how they can relate to the classroom. After reading this week's assignment I realized that I already do a lot of social learning in my classroom. One of the activities mentioned was Webquests. I have had my students complete a few of these of the past year. The students enjoy them and learn quite a bit of information that they might not get from the text book. I have had the students work in groups to complete the Webquests because I feel that there is too much information for them to handle on their own. Another activity that was talked about in Using Technology with classroom instruction that works was the use of blogs. Towards the end of the year I had my students using blogs each week. I would post a math problem each Monday and the students had until Friday to respond to that problem. They had access to each other's blogs and could blog each other about the problem to get help. They then had to tell me how they solved it, as well as respond to at least two other students in any of my classes. This not only gave them access to me and the students in their class but also to other students I teach through out the day. Also towards the end of the year the school set up a Twitter account. It was mostly used for the school to post things that were going on but parents and students could follow us and post things as well. I am looking forward to setting up blogs for my class this year and using them for other subjects as well as setting up a facebook page for my students and parents and a twitter account. I enjoy using these personally and can see the benefits of using them with the students.

Rachael Threadgill

*** here is the link for my voicethread****
http://voicethread.com/share/568075/