Engaged learning – We have moved!

These web 2.0 tools, LiveBinders and Trello, will help both you and your students manage projects that are collaborative in nature. They are both:

Free!
Web-based so work on any platform and device
Usable on the iPad with an app

LiveBinders

LiveBinders allows students to organize their digital resources in one place on the web and share the URL with those they are working with and their teacher. Because it is web-based, students can access it from any digital device connected to the Internet at any time. Also students can upload images and notes.

Below is tutorial that explains how to set up an account, put a LiveBinder tool in your bookmark bar, and save and organize resources.

LiveBinder can be kept private or made public. Here is the URL for one of my public LiveBinders focused on digital study tools: http://www.livebinders.com/play/play?id=333829&backurl=/shelf/my

Trello

Trello allows students to break their projects down into a series of tasks and then keep track of their progress. As you can see there is a To Do list as well Doing and Done Lists.

The other neat thing about Trello is that the teacher can track who is contributing to the project.

Watch this video to see how Trello works and how it can help your students stay organized and develop self-accountability. The video is from the world of business, however the ideas are easily adapted to the classroom.

There other videos on YouTube about Trello.

What Web 2.0 tools do you and your students find helpful in project work?

Almost everyone in middle level education in Maine knows Mike Muir! We have …

taught with him in Skowhegan
taken a course with him when he was a professor at Farmington
heard give a keynote at MAMLE
been mentored through a team project at MLEI
attended one of his state, regional, or national presentations
read one of his articles or blog posts
worked with him in Auburn where he is the current Multiple Pathways Leader

Mike gets around! In fact he is just about to become the new President of AMLE.

Mike is passionate about finding ways to ensure each student is given an even chance at succeeding in school. He believes that one important component in this quest is creating engaging and meaningful learning environments. He has described engaging tasks in a three-part series on his blog Multiple Pathways, a blog well worth following. He has given MAMLE permission to repost this series.

Here is Part 1.

What’s an Engaging Task?

Are you looking for a teaching strategy that can hook and engage your students? One that can work with almost any content area? Then you’re looking to use an Engaging Task.

Engaging Tasks are an easy-to-implement real world learning strategy.

Engaging Tasks are the part of a WebQuest that make them so engaging to students. But they are such a strong pedagogical strategy that they can be applied to nearly any subject or topic, don’t need to be part of a WebQuest, and don’t even have to be used for an activity that requires technology (although technology can be it’s own motivator!)

WebQuest.org – THE place for everything about WebQuests – defines a WebQuest as an inquiry-oriented lesson format in wich most or all of the information that learners work with comes from the web. Some educators mis-identify a WebQuest as a series of low-level questions that students use the web to track down answers to, but this is far from a WebQuest. WebQuests require that students apply higher order thinking strategies.

The idea of WebQuests was developed by Bernie Dodge and Tom March.

WebQuests follow a specific format and include these 6 components (although sometimes one or two of them might be combined):

Introduction
Task
Procedure
Resources
Evaluation
Conclusion

In my opinion, the part of a (good) WebQuest that makes it so engaging is the task. What makes a task so engaging?

Instead of simply charging students with an assignment, an Engaging Task tells a little story (only a paragraph or so!) that gives the students a reason for doing the work. The engaging task is made up of three parts: