AND HOW DOES IT RELATE TO ECTO?
Multiple participants in the blog discussion commented that they love the idea of integrating social networking in the classroom and challenged the group to think more about how best to accomplish that integration.
In addition, some voiced concern over the danger of using sites like MySpace or Facebook in the classroom and others wondered exactly how the use of these sites could be adapted for educational aims.
Apparently they had not yet heard of Ecto!
ECTO HARNESSES THE POWER OF SOCIAL NETWORKING FOR OPTIMAL CLASSROOM USE
- Social networking is a key component of Ecto
- The Ecto interface is familiar to students because it looks and operates just much like MySpace or Facebook-for instance, teachers and students all have personal profile pages
- Ecto is safer social networking environment because it has multiple control features built in for teachers and administrators. There is no need for classroom use of "after school sites" such as MySpace or Facebook
ECTO TAKES SOCIAL NETWORKING TO A NEW LEVEL BY INTEGRATING IT WITH TOOLS TEACHERS NEED AND WITH AN OPEN LIBRARY
- Unlike MySpace or Facebook, social networking/connecting in Ecto is not an end in itself but a means of enabling collaboration in the wired classroom andallowing teachers to administer their online in an efficient, engaging manner. Teachers form groups for each of their courses and subgroups for project-based lessons
- Ecto merges social networking with a full-featured online LMS toolset (attendance tracker, gradebook)
- Ecto enables users to upload their own learning content and create auto-graded learning items. The community then shares this content in a vast open,library where everything can be rated and commented upon by the global Ecto network--much like YouTube's library of videos or Amazon's inventory of product reviews
Any educator who wishes to bring social networking into the classroom in a way that harnesses its power in service of collaboration and learning needs to find out about Ecto. If someone you know is interested in Ecto, a good way to spread the word is to direct them to the new Ecto video "What is Ecto?" at:
http://www.ectolearning.com/Ecto2/Page.aspx?p=yqknbdluyk