Teaching to reach every single student

It is great to think and write about the impact of internet technologies like blogs, wikis, and podcasts on students’ actively (and creatively) participating in/authoring their educational experiences. And it is great to see how other teachers are making use of these technologies in ways that make me say, “I wish I’d thought of that.”

But then it’s good, at least every now and then, to take and break and play, which is what I have been doing. I have been playing with some very cool online tools. And, needless to say they have a lot to do with all that noble, important stuff in the first paragraph.

So, here’s a little tool through the sandbox (at present).

First, there’s Gliffy, which is an online outlining tool like Inspiration. You can create diagrams using shapes and connectors, just like you’d expect, and you have plenty of templates to choose from. Once you edit the drawing and get it just so, you can dowload it in jpeg, svg, and png formats. From a usability perspective, the interface is very friendly and useful (see screenshot). Better still, you can email collaborators (or potential collaborators) who can then work with you on the drawing. This is what makes it great for me, the part about collaboration.

Continuing with the collaboration theme is Zoho, which is a suite of standard office (small and big “O”) applications like a word processor, spreadsheet application, and presentation creator. Zoho also has other tools, like a notebook, project manager, outliner — even chat, wikis, and meeting spaces. And they all seem to be free.

So, with these tools, I imagine an easy to follow workflow. Students (or teachers) are working on projects together requiring words, images, and diagrams. Maybe even a slideshow. We can all work on the same documents in online collaboration and then share our results with whoever.

Next, there’s Picnik. It’s an online photo editor with lots of neat features. Of course, you can crop, resize, correct exposures, and even apply some special effects. You can upload photos or get direct access to Flickr Photostreams, Picasa Web Albums, even Webcams. The neatest feature for me is the interface, which is fun and friendly, with lots of cool, widgety touches. Imagine editing for everyone, you might say.

So, imagine this workflow. I am on my way somewhere and witness something cool, say a duck driving a car. I whip out my cellphone and snap a picture. Then, I instantly upload the photo to my Flickr account and realize with a little tweaking I could win a Pulitzer. So, I open it in Picnik, make some adjustments, which saves it back to my Flickr account, from which I can post it to my blog and share it with the world.

In fact, I am imagining this workflow for a school wide (maybe a district wide) project to mark Earth Day this year. My idea is to have the students and teachers take pictures of the natural world around them. They can then upload them to my Flickr account. I can tweak them if needed, and in no time, we can have an album to share with our take on Earth Day 2007.

I’ll report back on how it goes.

Blogged with Flock