Educational Social Media for 2011-2012

We live in the age of collaboration and social media, where our students are wired with the need to collaborate and stay connected. As the new school year begins, here are some tips for you to keep your students collaborating and connecting:

Edmodo

Our students use Facebook and Twitter on a daily basis. Why not develop an educational social network in your classroom called ? It's set up to be very similar to Facebook, with the options to post messages, assignments, and surveys. Students can even have text messages sent to them when assignments are due! I have used Edmodo for over a year now and it has allowed me to create a "paperless" classroom, where students are able to collaborate and connect with classroom content. I can even give students instant feedback / grades.

Collaborize Classroom

Collaborize Classroom is another way for teachers to extend their classroom discussions to a structured and private online community. It is designed to support classroom instruction by engaging students in online activities, assignments and discussions, creating deeper participation inside and outside the classroom. It is very easy to embed Microsoft Office documents, videos, etc. inside of the classroom. Best of all, it's free!

iKeepBookmarks

Delicious and Diigo are examples of social bookmarking, where you can save links and access them wherever you have a computer. However, they are often very complicated and cluttered in some classrooms. Why not use a simplified version of social bookmarking called iKeepBookmarks? The site is nothing new, but it may be a great way for you to share links with your students.

You can even create individual folders for your students to access, creating an alternative for our younger students, yet still appropriate for our high school kids.