Chapter 5- Using Tools to Support Connected Learning

In chapter 5 of the book titled “The Connected Educator: Learning and Leading in a Digital Age” it focuses on how to use different web tools, what they are utilized for, and how they can support us in our future. The multiple web tools that the book mentioned was documenting and archiving, connecting and collaborating, social networking, and extending learning in the classroom.

Documenting and archiving are mostly social bookmarking web tools. Social bookmarking is an online service which allows users to add, edit, and share bookmarks of web documents. Some examples of social bookmarking web tools are Delicious and Pinterest. Delicious was founded in 2003 and made the term “tagging” popular. Tagging allows users to organize their bookmarks and develop shared vocabularies. On the other hand, Pinterest was created in 2010 and is known as a social network that allows users to visually share and discover new interests by pinning on images or videos.
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Connecting and collaborating are blog web tools such as Edublog. Edublog is a blog that helps those involved in education learn and communicate with students and the parents. An example of a social networking web tool is Twitter. Twitter is a social networking service on which users post and interact with messages known as tweets, Lastly, an example of extending learning in the classroom is TeacherTube. TeacherTube is a video sharing website that is designed to allow teachers to share educational resources such as video, audio, documents, photos, etc. to students.

Some other web tools that were mentioned in the text were Podcasts, and Google Documents. Podcasts are audio or video files of someone talking. People turn to podcasts as it may be easier for them to learn or comprehend better by listening rather than writing or reading. Google Documents on the other hand is also known as Google Docs, and it’s a web-based document sharing tool. It is similar to Microsoft Office suite, but it is free and accessible via the Internet with a Google Gmail account.

This chapter ties into my degree as a Computer Science and Information Systems major in many ways. One way it fits into my field is by allowing me to stay connected or reach out to my potential career field jobs by using web tools such as LinkedIn. LinkedIn allowed me to connect with people near me with the same goals and degree field as me and with connecting to them, I was able to obtain more knowledge and get a job intern this summer. Another way this chapter fits my career field is by exposing me to various web tools to further my career. I learned how to network using podcasts and blogs. One important web tool that I can use would be Google Docs. Google Docs comes in very handy when you want to type a paper, create a powerpoint or make a excel sheet. The best part of Google Docs is that it's completely free with a Google account and have similar features as Microsoft Office. One great feature it has is that it auto saves your work everything you edit or type so if for any reason your computer malfunctioned and you weren't able to save your work, you wouldn't have to worry since it auto saved the work for you.

My question is out of all the mentioned web tool services in this chapter, which one of them is the most useful for your field of study? Why?

References:

Nussbaum-Beach, Sheryl. The Connected Educator: Learning and Leading in a Digital Age. 2011.