What Do Today’s Students
futures we cannot even imagine at the moment.
Tools for gathering information include Instagrok,
www.instagrok.com; Jogtheweb, www.jogtheweb.com;
and Scoop.it, www.scoop.it. Instagrok bills itself as a “new
Dorothy Minor
way to learn.” It is a search engine with several special feaAssociate Professor
tures. When users type in a subject, Instagrok returns an
Communications Services
interactive map complete with appropriate Web sites, videos, images, glossary, key facts, and quizzes on the subject.
Northeast Campus
By creating a free account, users can also keep a journal of
CELT Coordinator
their searches, their own notes as they research, and Web
On September 19, 2013, Eric Patnoudes posted on sites, images, and videos for future reference. All of these
Edudemic “The 4 Things Modern Students Must Underfeatures are free; Instagrok does have a classroom plan
stand.” Patnoudes is a “passionately curious connected
which does cost money, but purchasing the classroom site
educator, instructional technologist, Microsoft Innovative is not necessary. Jogtheweb is another site where users
Educator Trainer, and advocate for innovation creativity
can collect Web sites, comment on the sites, and add their
and imagination in education.” His article reminds educa- own questions, ideas, and commentary. For anyone worktors that we should follow John Dewey’s admonition: “If
ing on a research project, storing sites in Jogtheweb makes
we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our
sense in that the sites are accessible from one location and
[students] of tomorrow.” He continues by also referencing easily edited. Scoop.it is similar to Jogtheweb in that users
Sugata Mitra, Professor of Educational Technology at the
create a free account and then collect Web sites on the
School of Education, Communication and Language Scienc- topic of the user’s interest. A user may have up to five free
es, Newcastle, England and visiting professor at MIT. Pro- Scoop.it topics; after that, the user must pay for additional
fessor Mitra names the four things modern students must sites, but five can be plenty. Scoop.it allows users to write
understand “to become contributing members of a global their own insight about the pages collected in a particular
society.”
According to Professor Mitra:
scoop or topic. Others can see the scoops and comment on
them or rescoop the sites into their own topics. All three of
“First, they should be adept at finding information
these tools are readily shared through links, Facebook,
quickly and easily on the internet.
Twitter, Google+, and other social media.
Next, he says they have to comprehend what they are
Using the tools listed above, students have begun
reading.
the process of gathering information. They also need to
Third, students will have to organize the information
understand what they have found. Tools which are helpful
they have discovered in a manner that makes
in that regard include Padlet, www.padlet; Linoit,
sense.
en.linoit.com; and Mightybell, www.mightybell.com. At
Finally, decide which information they will use to
Padlet, students have a wall on which they can easily post
make a decision, solve a problem, or accomplish a questions, comments, videos, documents, and Web sites.
task.”
Professors can set up specific boards and invite students
by email, thus keeping the site private and open only to
If we learn to use the Web tools effectively, we can
those invited to use the wall. Students can create their
teach our students how to use them, but we can also learn
own free Padlet sites as a way to keep track of materials in
from those same students new ways to use the technology.
a research project, sources they wish to remember for latBy encouraging students to find, understand, organize, and
(Continued on page 17)
use the information, we are equipping them for jobs and
Need to Know?
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