Virtual Environment Learner

In the last couple of weeks I have been learning about new trends in current and future technology that have an impact on our
educational environment.  We began by reading "The 2011 Horizon Report" and then reviewed the article using a SWOT chart that lists in chart form:  Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Since there is an abundance of resources and relationships available at our hands via the Internet, instructors are challenged to integrate these into classrooms in order to help students learn. E-Books are compact and accessible from any mobile device.  E-Books are challenging the traditional way of reading books. Mobiles are becoming smaller, compact and more affordable now. Game-based learning can promote teamwork and cooperation while teaching problem solving.

The education article from "Horizon 2011" helps to delineate how technology can begin to be incorporated into the classroom thus requiring fewer trips to the library or bookstore.  It actually poses a threat to publisher's business.  Next, we were given 14 links including a Google search engine on various collaboration tools available on the web and 25 tools every learning professional should have in their toolbox: http://c4lpt.co.uk/25Tools/. Social bookmarking and social networking sites are included along with photo sharing a http://flickr.com/commons

Other tools are Podcasts from iTunesU:BerkeleyiTunesU:http://itunes.berkeley.edu/  that enable listening to Arts, Education, Politics, Science and Technology events currently up-to-date.  Mindmeister is definitely one of the top collaboration and learning tools in 2011. Through reading and researching Will Richardson's book "Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms" teachers can learn how to apply these technologies in a collaborative classroom environment.  We therefore see how the web has affected education and student's social learning in the past 2 decades.

Next, the class focuses on "Using Wikis for Online Collaboration" written by James and Margaret West in 2009. This awesome book discusses wikis as a collaborative software tool that facilitates communication and teamwork.  Generating, designing, and facilitating an online learning wiki requires a bit of work for anyone, especially students. Teachers use wikis for the desired results of teaching knowledge construction, critical thinking or contextual application.  In order to do this, they must include framing and outline that help with creating a home page and content page.  Given a starting point, students can plan, design and facilitate a classroom wiki. A good instructional video includes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnL00TdmL helps to explain creating wikis in more simplistic terms.