The past few weeks the tools we have been learning about seem to be mainly tools that can be used to create a community of engaged learners in your classroom. Week 5 we learned about different ways to create online bulletin boards for our classrooms using a variety of websites. This is a great way for teachers to stay in touch with their students, even when they are outside the classroom. Any information students may need to access can be posted there, so that the students have that resource at any time. These bulletin boards can also be set up so that students can interact with each other. These can be used to facilitate discussions outside of the classroom to ensure that students are always thinking critically.
The other tool we learned about that helps build a community of engaged learners within the classroom are the Makerspaces that we learned about in Week 6. The purpose of Makerspaces is to encourage student creativity in the classroom. They allow students to engage with the material through engaging their own interests. Makerspaces allow for a lot of creative freedom for students, so teachers need to be flexible in what they allow their students to produce. They also encourage student collaboration, which is very important if a teacher wishes to create that engaged learning enviroment within their classroom.
Collin' Blog 