Saturday, September 13, 2014

What do you think of Google Classroom?

Google Classroom is the new kid on the block, perhaps offering a (currently free) option to Teacher Dashboard. I have explored Google Classroom, and have spoken to a couple of people who are using it, but I would love to hear more from folk who are using it a lot with their learners (of any and all ages :-p). What do you think of it (overall impression)? What do your learners think of it? Any really positive aspects? What would you like to change / add?
If you're not sure what Google Classroom is, the description on the Google Classroom online space (which is also the place you can kickstart your own Google Classroom) is as follows:
Classroom is available to anyone with Google Apps for Education, a free suite of productivity tools including Gmail, Drive and Docs.
Classroom is designed to help teachers create and collect assignments paperlessly, including time-saving features like the ability to automatically make a copy of a Google Document for each student. It also creates Drive folders for each assignment and for each student to help keep everyone organized.
Students can keep track of what’s due on the Assignments page and begin working with just a click. Teachers can quickly see who has or hasn't completed the work, and provide direct, real-time feedback and grades right in Classroom.

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Social curation and what it might mean for learning

From the awesome Joyce Seitzinger (@catspyjamasnz) is a visual feast that helps capture some of the key concepts of social curation, online identity, and what these can mean for learning going forward.

The implications for formal education are fundamental...as Joyce observes "I don't think that education is about centralized instruction anymore" (Slide 10). Your thoughts?