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Sunday, January 29, 2012

EtherPad + Teaching = Successful Classroom???

Being recently exposed to EtherPad, I have done a lot of thinking about how I might be able to use it for teaching. I'm familiar with Google Docs. I'm familiar with how it could be used in the classroom and allow for multiple editing. What I really like about EtherPad is that it allows all of that, but it seems to have a much easier platform to work with, especially for the purpose of having multiple people work on one document at the same time.

As I was thinking about my English classrooms in the past, the first thing that came to my mind was quickwrites. I love using them in my classroom. However, it's always a pain to get students to talk. It's like pulling teeth. Every-so-often I will have a student who will volunteer to speak, but my goal is to get a conversation going, not have them feel as if they are being put on the spot. If I were able to use the EtherPad for quickwrites, it would give such a different atmosphere in the classroom. So now, the students that didn't like talking or interacting have an opportunity to become a part of the class.

I can't wait to have the opportunity to actually use it with my students. I believe it can be used for multiple types of lessons, not just an English/writing classroom. When I do get the chance to implement it, I expect only to see positive results as I think students enjoy learning through technology.

1 comment:

  1. If and when you do try it with your students, Leandra, I would love to hear how it goes. My uses of Etherpad have been fairly limited, but I think it could be put to many different, imaginative uses likes the ones you describe.

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