Kickin' It Old School

Classroom 2.0-  This tool is somewhat deceiving.  Visually, it looks as if it was built in the late 90s when the information superhighway was just beginning to gain speed.  Despite appearances, Classroom 2.0 is a nice location to gain independent professional development concerning the integration of technology in your classroom.  It boast numbers of 80,000 members spanning 200 countries, which is impressive, especially since they are very careful of who they allow to become a member.  Its nice to see a selective process to avoid the ever present internet troll.  The busy homepage may take some getting use to, but I found the left column menu categorizes potential purposes for using the site.  

Are you beginning to incorporate communication tools using technology in your classroom? At a loss of where to begin?  Start here.  People have posted on how they’ve done it, what to avoid, things that failed, things that were surprisingly successful, and even questions on what others are doing.  This is the site you want to make sure you are curling up with your cat, a glass of wine, and full battery on your device.  It’s almost like getting caught in the Pinterest vortex, but with a focus on education and technology.

The forum style of this tool gives users the ability to be proactive about flipping their classroom.  They can transform the style of learning to create a technology driven environment.  It it easily navigable, extremely safe from unsavories, and provides many different ways for teachers to exercise their students’ brains.  The only part of the rubric that this forum doesn’t attend to is the application for student use.  It is designed for educators to bring to students, not students to use and discover on their own.  Not that it would prohibit them from doing such, but the target audience is teachers/educators.  

Communication Tool Rubric

	User Friendliness	Safety	Customization for Educators	Cross-Curricular Application	Cognitive Differentiation
EXCEEDS 4	Is more user friendly than traditional means/methods of teaching and/or completing standards, and/or can be used as an alternative method for students who struggle with the traditional methods of instruction/assessments.	Can be closely monitored by teachers/gatekeepers to ensure all participants (students, community members, etc,) abide digital citizenship standards with strict security measures and clearly stated privacy policies.	Can be customized to support collegial professional development AND classroom instruction, assessment, and/or reporting.	Can be used to develop units of study that tie in learning targets from multiple subject areas and connect to the world beyond school in order to increase relevance.	Can be used in all levels and a variety of processes of Marzano’s taxonomy.
MEETS 3	Can be used on a variety of devices and is easy to use for students and teachers.	Can be monitored by teachers/ gatekeepers and allows for opportunities to select/edit for instances of non-compliance of digital citizenship and with moderate security measures and a reasonable privacy policies.	Can be customized to meet the needs of individual educators according to grade level, subject area, class size, experience with technology, professional development needs, etc.	Can be applied to multiple learning targets across subject areas and/or can be used to help design or support cross-curricular units of study.	Can be used for a variety of processes and levels of Marzano’s taxonomy.
PARTIALLY MEETS 2	Can be used on a variety of devices or is easy to use for students and teachers.	Can be monitored by teacher/ gatekeepers with limited opportunities to be select/edit for instances of non-compliance of digital citizenship standards and minimal security measures.	Can be partially customized, but not enough to fully meet the needs of individual educators.	Can be applied to only one or two learning targets in one or two subject areas and would need modification in order to support the development of cross-curricular units of study.	Can be used for a variety of categories on one level of the taxonomy or a few processes on various levels of Marzano’s taxonomy.
DOES NOT MEET 1	Has several barriers which make it difficult for students and/or teachers to use.	Does not allow for monitoring by teacher/gatekeeper and permits disregard for digital citizenship standards.	Does not allow customization to meet the needs of individual educators,	Does not apply to learning targets in any more than one subject area.	Is limited to only a few categories of one process of Marzano’s taxonomy.
Additional notes