• Discovering students’ prior knowledge and experience of the content they are about to learn and meeting them where they are;
• Guiding students to make healthy academic decisions;
• Developing learning communities that celebrate the individuality and contributions of each student;
and
• Consolidating forms of student learning data so that they are useful for planning for personalized instruction.
One of the elements of personalized learning is that learning requires the active, constructive involvement of the learner. Tools that allow for brainstorming, sharing and collaboration are excellent for achieving this element of personalized learning. For today’s tech snack, I want to talk to you about a tool call lino.
http://en.linoit.com/
What is Lino?
Lino is a free web based service that allows you to create digital corkboards where you can“stick” post it notes. With lino, you can add post it notes, along with pictures, videos, files and multimedia presentations on a digital “cork board”. So at first glance, it appears to be a nice site to share multiple resources from one location.
Lino, however, is much more than just a content sharing site. It provides teachers with a great way to engage students in brainstorming and collaboration activities online. For example, teachers can provide a topic and allow students to generate ideas and/or ask questions before they begin prewriting. If the teacher chooses to, she can create a corkboard that students can post comments, images, and videos to. Teachers also have the ability to can create groups and make canvases (corkboards) private or public.
So how does it work?
Lino uses a simple click and drag interface. To start using lino, you first create and account and then start creating your “corkboard”.
**The only thing I noticed with this option is that if you add a file like a powerpoint or a word document, it will give you an option to download the file, however, when you click on the option it does ask you to login to download the file. All the other content(videos, post it notes, texts and pictures) work without a login. If you are going to add files to your corkboard that you want others to access, you might want to create a generic student login that students can use to download the files. (this is more for younger students. Older students can create their own logins)
- Use it for brainstorming or collaboration
- Use to help "flip" the content of your classroom: Students can access the canvas from home and then discuss the content in class
- Use a canvas as an electronic portfolio or "showcase" of students' work
- Use a canvas to share classroom news, announcements or praises
- Create a canvas of useful websites that help reinforce content that students can use at home for practice
For more information on how this tool works, click on the video tutorial below: