Thing 13: 21st Century Conference
I attended the conference entitled “If all my classes did this” by Wendy Wolfe. Interestingly, the title for the conference came from one of her students who said, “If all my classes did this, I would like school” in regards to a student’s interest in using Toon Doo in the classroom. Wendy touched upon several different technologies such as Toon Doo, Comic Creators, Zoho, Gliffy and G Cast podcasting.
She used Toon Doo with at risk and other students, and described it as easy to use and creative. With the comics students can define words, create scenes from a book, newspaper stories, editorials, etc. I would like to see the best way to save and share these cartoons. One problem she discussed was that cartoons are public and students may (and have in her classes) receive inappropriate comments from anyone. This tool could be used in my classroom for vocabulary, literature, writing, etc.
Read Write Think Cartoon Creator is somewhat similar to Toon Doo but has fewer features and does not publish to the internet. You only can scan it to include it in blogs or wikis, but it can be printed.
Zoho could be used with writing and presentations like PowerPoint but web based. However, it does not have backgrounds or graphics (you must upload them from other places). You can save or publish to Internet or a wiki. This tool was not as appealing to me.
G cast podcasting includes basic pod casting recording through phone and can be embedded in wikis. I feel like I need to investigate this tool further.
All in all, I found Wendy’s presentation interesting and helpful in determining what tools exist on the web.
