Mobile technology has totally changed our personal lives and has begun to transform the way we teach as well. According to the authors of "A Look at Research on Mobile Learning in K–12 Education From 2007 to the Present," mobile tech has become "central to the learning process" with a growing number of teachers who report their students using cell phones and tablet computers to complete assignments (Liu, Scordino, Geurtz, Navarrete, Ko, Lim, 2014, p. 2) The authors research showed that mobile devices are often used in K - 12 education despite the fact that many schools still prohibit their use. Those outdated policies are changing though as they are being reviewed by school districts which are moving toward more open learning environments (2014).
3 Handy Tools
New web 2.0 tools and apps are popping up all the time and there are so many great ones for personal and school use! I am sharing three tools that I think are useful in both arenas of life - Project Gutenberg, Lino, and Padlet. First, Project Gutenberg is both an app and a web site with more than 53,000 free ebooks which can be downloaded to a kindle or read online. Most of the copyrights on the books have expired in the U.S. and that's why they are able to be shared for free. There is a large children's book collection which I could read with students in our elementary school but there are so many books I could enjoy in my personal time as well. As a media specialist, what could be better and more convenient than online access to thousands of free books?! Ebooks can be helpful to visually impaired learners who can enlarge text to meet their needs and the technology aspect makes the text more engaging for many students with focusing issues. One challenge for school use may be finding books students can relate to since the titles are old.
Project Gutenberg
Lino (Click on the word Lino and share your favorite web 2.0 tools)
Padlet (Click on the word Padlet and share awesome web 2.0 sites or apps)
Plickers (Click on the word Plickers to see the screencast)
Liu, M., Scordino, R., Geurtz, R., Navarrete, C., Ko, Y., & Lim, M. (2014). A Look at Research on Mobile Learning in K–12
Education From 2007 to the Present.Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 46(4), 325-372. Retrieved October
23, 2016, from KSU D2L.