Participate 1.1.2 Joining a Digital Learning Community Quest

In a blog post, share and discuss the traits that made the five DLCs explored more noticeable or impressive than the others. Finally, share the name of the DLC joined and the reason why the DLC was the most intriguing. What is the DLC like? What can Digital Citizens do to make the process of joining a DLC more appealing to and easier for students?

1. Edmodo 

I signed up for Edmodo over a year ago, but I have failed to use it as a digital learning community. It does look like Facebook, which is considered a plus by many teachers, but I have found that students prefer to use the Google products associated with their county emails to communicate with their peers and stay updated on classroom assignments. 

2. Khan Academy

I have used Khan to facilitate my own learning regarding topics I needed to review or tests I had to take. Although Khan has fewer resources for ELA, Khan does provide opportunities for cross-curricular connections. It's also a great way to engage students in courses that we don't offer at the high school level at this time. Khan is easy to navigate, and I like the Community Questions feature as well.  

3. Open Culture

Of the communities I explored, Open Culture was the most unique. It is somewhat overwhelming due to the volume of resources on the site. However, it has a plethora of engaging and interesting videos, images, and texts. I really appreciate the large compilation of audio books as well.  

Although I have previously joined several of these, Open Culture (#3) was the most intriguing because it has materials to help students, and they are presented in formats that are engaging to students. The key word that stands out to me on almost every resource is FREE. So often, I am limited to the resources the school owns, but this allows more freedom in choosing resources and texts. I think that my students, especially AP students, would be most inclined to utilize this site. In fact, I shared this with my students immediately on Google Classroom. 

4. Open Study

This one stood out to me immediately because I teach AP Literature. Students are always looking for ways to study vocabulary and grammar concepts together but with work and other commitments, it can be difficult. This looked like a great incentive to get students to study.  I think students would enjoy the badge aspect as well. Some teachers may feel this fosters cheating, but if students are studying together, at least they are studying! 

5. Open Yale Courses 

I like the rigor of the lectures via online video on this site. Often, gifted students complain of boredom with the curriculum. This site is a great way to add rigor to the curriculum and differentiate for higher level students.