There was so much information given to us during this week’s work load. I ate it up. There were so many helpful and interesting resources given to us and I am excited to continue to explore them. One resource given to us was ds106. This is a site where you can go to do daily challenges that consist of writing, photography, drawing, audio, and video. They do different digital storytelling and get you out of your comfort zone. I haven’t quite gotten the hang of the concept or the website but I am still learning and exploring. I have spent some time on there, but would like to spend more time in order to get more comfortable and understand it better. I think once I do, it is going to help me out greatly. I am excited for the 20 day challenge.
Other things touched on this week were podcasts and digital stories. I had heard of podcasts before and have some friends that like them but had not really tried them out for myself. I listened to the podcast Dr. Death and listened to the whole thing! I really enjoyed it. I love reading but find myself too busy to want to sit and read consistently. With podcasts I am able to multitask while listening to it. I like the idea of digital story telling. It is between a video and a podcast, which can be beneficial to certain learners. I think just like with anything podcasts and digital storytellers can be abused and misused. Under the right circumstances, they can be great learning tools for students.
When we incorporate different learning styles like podcasts, digital stories, or the tools from ds106 it gives students a diverse way of learning. It can also help keep things new and interesting for teachers. Not only is it beneficial for student to learn from them, but also to create them themselves. Making their own digital story would be a great project for just about any subject. My biggest takeaway from these tools and resources was that there ARE these tools and resources available. It would be a huge waste for an educator to not utilize these. It makes a teacher better and students are getting the most information possible. What is so great about the ds106 is it forces you to learn new websites and strategies to make a lesson more rigorous than it originally thought out as.
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