The advancing of technology has shaped the learning and teaching experiences. Today, the usages of the internet and online tools and technologies have become more and more popular. Learners and instructors are expected to use online educational tools in one form or another for information sharing, resource gathering, and assessment. Online technology tools allow the alignment of a deep approach to learning and teaching building appropriate workload, and integrated learning environment (Ellis & Bliuc, 2019). The booming popularity of online learning has allowed the development of many tools for online educational sharing that learners and instructor alike can use to help increase learning management and experiences.
Tools for Interactive Classroom Collaboration
The interactive classroom collaboration tools allow the instructors and the learners to freely interact and communicate with each other sharing information, creativity, and support for an active learning effort (Walsh, 2014). The interactive classroom collaboration tools provided a wide range of functionalities that manage the learning experience.
- Google Drive – Google Drive can be used as an interactive classroom collaboration tool that allows instructors and learners to share documents, worksheets, and other forms of class materials for an interactive classroom activity. Google drive functions allow users to collaboratively editing and syncing files across multiple arrays of devices making it easier for online educational sharing for instructors and learners. The platform is free and openly available to everyone to use and maintain privacy and security (Bristol, 2018). Other options that are available within Google Drive are Google Classroom and Google Hangouts. Google Classroom and Google Hangouts design for instructional design, productivity classroom management helping collaboration and communication (Walsh, 2014).
- Skype – Skype is a popularly known platform for group meetings and conferences through video calls and messages. The platform is easy to use and available in many nations and adaptable for many devices (Support.Skype.com,n.d.). Skype helps online educational sharing by instructors and learner to have face-to-face interactions and communication and sharing information and data.
Tools for Online Resources
Learners and instructors need to use textbooks and scholarly articles in the process of education for resources and information. To satisfy the need for academic resources, many tools and websites offer these resources for online educational sharing available for learners and instructors.
- Google Scholar – Google Scholar is a search engine for finding scholarly articles and books for students and instructors. The search engines allow the users to narrow down material to specific categories, years, patents, citation, and relevancy to find the most useful and often free scholarly articles and books for academic use (Drew, n.d.).
- Wikipedia.org – Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia where information and data are collectively constructed by writers from all over the world. In recent years, Wikipedia has made its way into the educational world as instructors and universities around the world have begun using Wikipedia as a teaching tool. Wikipedia is a gigantic open repository of information that allows everyone to contribute. However, the freedom or contribution opens to the idea of fake information and not creditable information. The usage of Wikipedia information in citation and references is still not widely accepted in the academic world (Lladós-Masllorens et al., 2017). Wikipedia is an excellent tool for gaining information and data to understand more on a topic. However, the use of Wikipedia in education needs to be taking into consideration.
- Textbook Revolution – Textbook Revolution is a student-run website that offers free educational materials for learners and instructors. The platform offer e-books and websites that contain course materials arranging by subjects, collections, and license (textbookrevolution.org, n.d.). The website offer free access to learning materials that are available and accessible by everyone.
Educational Portal
Educational Portals are platforms design to help in the process of learning management and experiences. The educational portals create, host, distribute, and assessing training and education lessons. Learners and instructors use the educational portals to help in the process of managing, measuring, and sharing educational materials.
- Study.com – A learning portal that is designed for schools, instructors, and learners. The website offers courses and lesson plans for instructors, and study aids and test preps for learners. Study.com helps to personalized learning events that match the learners’ learning styles easing the learning process with adaptive learning courses and technology (Study.com, n.d.). The website makes learning events and learning management easy for users.
- Synergy-learning.com – A website that offers learning solution for instructors and learners by creating institutive and accessible learning platform that deliver lessons, resources, and results. Synergy-learning.com provides e-learning contents for learners with a learning management system that help learners and instructors to organize and distribute materials and lesson plans creating engaging learning experiences (Synergy-learning.com, n.d.).
Conclusion
In the modern world of education, technology tools are playing a key role in the development, management, and practice of learning events. Learners and instructors can easily find and utilize technology tools for online educational sharing. The technology tools are available in a wide spectrum offering supports to learning process from instructional designing process, to distribute materials, finding learning resources to communication, and provided feedback and assessments. The options and choices of educational sharing technology tools are vast and multicolor. Learners and instructors can easily choose the one that most suitable for their learning style and experience.
References
Bristol, J. (2018). Google Drive. https://www.commonsense.org/education/website/google-drive
Drew, C. (n.d.). 8 ways to find scholarly articles for free. https://helpfulprofessor.com/scholarly-articles/
Ellis, R. A., & Bliuc, A. M. (2019). Exploring new elements of the student approaches to learning framework: The role of online learning technologies in student learning. Active Learning in Higher Education, 20(1), 11-24. https://doi.org/0.1177/1469787417721384
Lladós-Masllorens, J., Aibar, E., Meseguer-Artola, A., Minguillón, J. & Lerga Felip, M. (2017). Explaining Teaching Uses of Wikipedia throughFaculty Personal and Contextual Features. Online Information Review,41(5), 728-743.https://doi.org/10.1108/OIR-10-201
Study.com. (n.d.). Simplifying learning unlocks opportunity. https://study.com/pages/About_Us.html
Support.skype.com. (n.d.). What is Skype? https://support.skype.com/en/faq/FA6/what-is-skype
Synergy-learning.com. (n.d.). Experts in creating learning with impact. https://www.synergy-learning.com/?utm_source=adwords&utm_term=e%20learning%20portal&utm_medium=ppc&utm_campaign=LMS&hsa_src=g&hsa_net=adwords&hsa_tgt=kwd-284116428&hsa_mt=p&hsa_ver=3&hsa_cam=11198225656&hsa_acc=7629392377&hsa_grp=109825418837&hsa_kw=e%20learning%20portal&hsa_ad=467726015441&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI76fvj-_o7gIVJMqUCR0OyAfuEAAYAiAAEgJDYvD_BwE
Textbookrevolution.org. (n.d.). Textbook Revolution. http://www.textbookrevolution.org/index.php/Main_Page
Walsh, K. (2014). 20 fun free tools for interactive classroom collaboration. EmergingEDTech. https://www.emergingedtech.com/2014/05/20-excellent-free-tools-for-interactive-collaboration-experiences-in-the-classroom/
Web 3.0 Technologies for Learning 