Image via Wikipedia
Image via Wikipedia
The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) is a worldwide nonprofit network of professional in educational technology, and has been providing standards for administrators, teachers and students for over a decade.
The ISTE has enabled its community to blog, social networking, Twitter and the like for a few years, and continues to lead the way and provide online collaboration and learning tools. The ISTE is swift to implement free software such as Google Docs, to create collaborative projects and network across platforms using technology. A spreadsheet was established through Google Docs that gives its users to add themselves to a Twitter Roll Call. Users can input a personal blog URL. Its community can also add their personal blog to network for linking from ISTEConnects.
Although some people may have heard about the ISTE and its seminal publications such as the National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) and “Learning and Leading” magazine, its progressive resources include pod casts, and a virtual island in the virtual world of Second Life.
Second Life has been around in various versions now since its inception. It is considered a virtual learning environment. Wikiversity and Grockit are more recent online software tools that are also considered virtual learning environment. While Wikiversity pushes information to students by providing content, Grockit is the next level up in teaching methods and study groups, and is more interactive.
The Grockit social network provides a virtual learning environment through educational software, or edu-ware, for student math, English and post-secondary test preparation. Its collaborative learning software covers the principle post-secondary entrance exams, the SAT, ACT, GRE, GMAT and LSAT and creates virtual study groups. The software uses a gaming format and allows multiple players to challenge each other about specific knowledge critical to success on tests. Wider participation, improved student capabilities, subject matter may become easier to understand, and differentiated instruction are benefits that can be gained from online learning technology.
