Blog Post #8

Find some 21st Century Learning and Communicating Tools? Tell us about them. Tell us where we can find them. Give a thorough review of at least one of them.

The first learning and communicating tool I discovered was LitPick. LitPick is a website that provides electronic books for students. One thing I loved about LitPick was that it is free. The teacher can contact the website and set up accounts for all of the students. On this website the students can not only read the books but they can also be a book critic and post reviews anonymously that can be read by others. One thing that I found very useful about LitPick was that it has a list on the homepage that will show the students the top books and new releases. LitPick is a website that the students can use at home to do their AR reading so they don't have to carry home their books. I think this a great website that will be very useful for my classroom once I become an educator.

After researching many learning and communicating tools, the one I feel will be very useful for me as an educator is QuadBlogging. QuadBlogging is a website that allows teachers to connect their students with three other schools so the students can blog with each other. The teacher can connect their students with schools in the same area or with schools around the world. I think this website is great for elementary teachers because it allows the students to connect with students all over the world from different cultures. One thing that I like about QuadBlogging is that each cycle lasts four weeks. After four weeks the students switch and blog with three other completely different schools. I like this because the students are constantly connecting and learning from different students.

I had no idea there were so many learning and communicating tools that I could one day use as an educator. I found multiple tools from ala.org while researching but these two stuck out to me the most. They are both great tools to use in the lower grade levels. I will defiantly take advantage of all the tools I found today to use in my classroom to make learning exciting and fun through technology.