Educational technologies are always changing. It seems as
soon as one adapts to one technology another one appears being the newest and
the greatest. Nonetheless, for my ABE/GED/ESL adult learners I would prefer
social network technologies that are more controllable than Facebook and
YouTube and can assist then with their academic goals in my absence, therefore
my choice of educational technologies consist of TeacherTube.com and Ning.com.
TeacherTube.com is similar to YouTube but as Bonk (2009)
describes it being “much tinier than its cousin YouTube” (p.224) the site only
consist of educational material delivered by educators and students and it is
free to join. Some of my adult learners that are struggling in math for example,
are exploring the site. They seem to like the videos available and do not mind
that they have to sift through the videos to find the right one for their needs
as a pose to putting the subject math in the YouTube search engine and hundreds
of math videos pop up. Moreover, the students feel like the teachers present
the information at a slower pace than the YouTube videos. Furthermore,
TeacherTube provides a perfect platform for uploading digital stories created
by the adult learners and can be used as a tutoring site because of the learners’
various literacy levels.
On the other hand, Ning.com is smartphone and tablet ready,
therefore a computer lab is not necessary the adult learners to interact with
the site. Moreover, the site has publishing tools and has the ability to
integrate with other social networks such as Facebook and YouTube; however the
attraction for me is that it is free and I can control my learning community. I
would use Ning.com with my more sophisticated ESL and GED adult learners
because most of them already have tablets and smartphones. This site would be a
great platform for the learners to create their individual stories and share
them orally (podcast) and written (blog) while constructing their competences
such as gathering and organizing their experiences, drafting and revising
collaboratively, refining and presenting.
Nevertheless, in the spirit of free I found two other sites
that I thought could be useful as well and they are the www.education-portal.com
and www.pbslearningmedia.org. Education-Portal offers free online video lessons
focused on the field of study from science to business to foreign language.
Moreover, they offer video lessons on a glossary of professions including
various teaching certifications, this is worth checking out. The other find is
PBS Learning Media. According to the site, “PBS offers over 35,000 video lesson
plans and interactive games for K-12 grades” (Public Broadcasting Service, 2013). Some of the
material is advanced enough for my adult learners. The education-portal can be
used by someone that needs a tutor on any of the academic subjects because they
offer more than 6,700+ lessons (video and/or text) and PBS offers writing
resources such as “Storytelling Writers’ Workshop”, again both sites are worth
looking into.
References:
Bonk, C. (2009). Chapter 7: Making a Contribution:
Opener #6: Learner Participation in Open Information Communities . In C. Bonk, World
Is Open: How Web Technology Is Revolutionizing Education (pp. 230-247).
Hoboken, NJ: Jossey-Bass.
Public Broadcasting Service. (2013, November). PBS
Learning Media. Retrieved from PBS: www.pbslearningmedia.org
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