Week 5 - Reply to Janet

Hi Janet, the tools of the educational trade have changed a lot (especially in the last 5 years)!  Collaboration in education (through technology) is one of the positives for sure.  Today's college students are MUCH better at collaborating.  Not only are they quite comfortable with technology and devices, they're already using these tools to stay connected every day.  Connection and collaboration is seamless and learning new collaborative tools is "no big deal".  Often students enjoy utilizing their devices in new innovative ways.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about GAFE (Google Apps For Education) and how I can utilize these tools within my asynchronous courses.  I love how students can contribute simultaneously, and see when others are online and working (collaboratively).  All the tools within GAFE are free (who doesn't love free?).  Here's an excellent Google Slides document GAFE for beginners, created by Sylvia Duckworth, a french teacher from Toronto.  Google Slides is just like PowerPoint btw.  Here's one of Sylvia's Sketchnotes (she's big on visual notetaking too, check out her archive of awesome pictures).