Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Edtech 522 - Module 3 Reflection

I enjoyed this module.  It gave me the opportunity to look through and revisit many online tools that I’ve been interested in or have used before.  I looked at Twitter, Scoop.it, Diggio, Facebook, Prezi, and Voicethread.  I also delved into Pinterest a little as wells as Edmodo and Learnist.  All of these sites provide services and tools that could be very beneficial to education.  Adults learn differently than adolescents and need to have clear goals.  It helps if the tools are intuitive.  From my experience teaching adults, the more they have to learn to actually use the tools, the more difficult it can be to gain buy in.  I’ve found that most people that I interact with use or are familiar with Facebook.  Even my grandmother uses Facebook.  I decided to spend my time exploring all of Facebook’s many tools and features.  About a year ago I created a group on Facebook hoping to get a writers together to share writing and give feedback.  Well it didn’t work out, but it did give a vehicle to explore the tools that Facebook offers.  It really is impressive.  I started to see many feature that full blown LMSs offer.  File uploads, messaging live and asynchronous chat and discussions.  Video and photo sharing and video calling are all present.  I am really excited.  Facebook offers so many possibilities for adults. 


I think that the biggest advantage for adult learners is ease of use and familiarity.  Adults, when in a comfortable place learn better.  Facebook gives them that comfort—that familiarity.  It gives them the tools they need to succeed.