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posters containing assigned codes; the answers are recorded by the teacher using a mobile device that scans the students’ codes and transforms them into scores; https:// www. socrative. com / – allows the users to create and administer individual or group tests / quizzes and questionnaires; the app records and analyses the answers.
4. Collaborative learning sites
With so many opportunities for students to work in groups and create some common output, there comes the need for them to have a meeting space that will go beyond the physical barriers, but also some sort of space where their materials can be safely displayed and shared for everybody’ s benefit.
There is no question as to the multiple benefits of collaborative learning, ranging from the opportunity to develop higher-level thinking, team-work, leadership skills, increase in students’ self-esteem and responsibility, exposure to diverse perspectives, increased tolerance and the opportunity to practice peer evaluation. It will ultimately prepare students for real-life interaction, when they need to share information and ideas, integrate them in new forms and then present them to an intended audience.
While this could be done, traditionally, using face-to-face interaction, technology allows students to contribute their own jigsaw puzzle pieces from the comfort of their own homes. It gives them the opportunity to work at their own pace and bring their contribution to the group effort. Online platforms give students an outlet for expressing comments on their peers’ work or even for rating it. What is maybe most important is that the work they have produced is available online for scrutiny and all the class members can have access to it all the time, using the outputs as learning resource, by reading or watching it as many times as needed for full understanding or retention.
Online platforms enable teachers to share interesting visual, video and audio information with students, assign tasks in a more challenging way and offer links for various resources that students can safely use for research.
Here are some collaborative learning sites that I have use with my students:
� www. wikispaces. com / – offers the students the opportunity to create collaborative pages and post information of any type( text, visual, audio, video) as well as interact through comments;
� www. padlet. com – site that does not require online registering, very easy to use on any mobile device, as students can upload any type of materials on a link offered by the teacher; � https:// nowcomment. com / – enables the teacher to organize online discussions,
� using materials uploaded in any format( visual, audio, video) as a starting point; www. wordpress. com – one of the most user-friendly blogging sites, allowing the students to post messages accompanied by images and video materials, as well as to record comments. Using technology in education is not only the cool new thing, but a must in an era when our students are the so-called‘ net generation’. If we agree that learning by doing is one of the best ways of approaching education, then we should start doing it digitally, so as to prepare our students for what awaits them when they graduate: a world in which they need to be not only digitally literate, but digitally competent.
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