EDLA615- Language Arts and Technology

Glogster is a great technological tool to bring into the classroom and into new literacies. Glogster is not a complicated tool to use, after playing around with it for just a few minutes I got to see and try out many of its great features. When creating a glog there are many great tools to use; text, images, graphics, backgrounds and more. Teachers can have their students create glogs on their own or collaboratively. Glogs can be used by both the teacher and the students. The teacher can create a glog to teacher her students. The glog can give information and be used as to demonstrate different things. Glogster can also be used by the students. Students can make projects and do assignments for school using this tool.

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VoiceThread is an excellent online tool to use in school. In can be used in the regular classroom, self-contained class, small groups, and more. VoiceThread makes learning more interesting and interactive for students. The teacher can create an account for their class where students can post VoiceThreads as well as watch and comment on their classmates. Students who usually do not want to do school work and are uninterested will start doing their work when voice threads are used.  VoiceThread was made with features that make it classroom friendly and safe, such as no setting the VoiceThreads public. VoiceThread is an amazing, well-priced tool that will ake our unmotivated students motivated and achieve.

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The article "The Impact of Using Blogs on College Students Reading Comprehension and Learning Motivation", is an article that discusses using blogs in college. Research was done to see how effective the use of blogs are. The research was done in a college with some classes using blogs and others not. The results of the research was very interesting. Many teachers believe that using technology in the classroom will help improve there students academic level. That was not the case with this blogging research. They have found that the groups of bloggers and non-bloggers scored around the same area with the reading. They found the biggest difference between the two groups in the classroom unity, the blogging class became like a community. When using technology in the classroom we have to keep these results in mind. We do want to add technology as there are benefits and that is what is in the world now, but we do need to make sure we have good and clear instructions for our studen...

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Second Life (SL) is a great tool to use in the classroom. There are many features and parts that can help enhance an ELA lesson. Second Life welcomes you into a virtual world. Students will have a chance to explore and see things on SL that they really would not have an opportunity to see otherwise. While exploring I have found a few different ways you can use SL in an ELA lesson. The first way is by going on an virtual field trip using SL and then have the students do some sort of writing or activity based on what they have seen an explore. This can make the lesson interesting and exciting and also open up to the teachers many more topics that they can have their students writing about. Another way to have ELA go along with SL is, when you teach your class a unit in English SL can be used to explore different places and things that go along with your unit. This will help the students get a super clear picture of what they are learning. Using Second Life can really benefit your ELA les...