this allows students to build an electronic portfolio which will give them the opportunity to look back and reflect upon their previous assignments. Live text provides three things for students: (1) demonstrate learning competencies, (2) display competencies, (3) a maintenance tool to document ongoing development (Banister et. al, 2006). Another important tool that LiveText comes with is unlimited storage space. Students can then upload as many documents as they need to the electronic database where they will be stored for as long as they are needed. For teachers, there is a template already built into LiveText for lesson plans. This will cut down the time that is needed to setup a lesson plan, which will allow more time to spend on other projects and grading assignments. There is, however, a downside to LiveText. Students must purchase a one time only subscription code that will give them unlimited access to the online software.
LiveText was originally designed to provide a secure, structured storage in cyberspace for use by elementary school students' work products. The idea was to show that students could understand and use technology. Founded in 1997, by undergraduate students at Illinois State University Department of Computer Science, LiveText was developed in the early days of the world wide web. The founders worked with professors under a grant from the Sloan Foundation to develop and deliver the first generation of web based classes.(Illinois State University)
LiveText is priced at eighty-nine dollars for a student addition that is valid until one year after you graduate your program. This seems a fair price considering the price of textbooks. Also, you can renew your subscription on a yearly basis after that. You also have the capability of allowing a visitor to view your files by giving them a password. With the password, your guest simply logs into LiveText using the password and can then review your files. This could be a very valuable tool for submitting your portfolio to prospective employers upon graduation.
Anyone in college has had at least some interaction with Blackboard. For students in high school, there is almost none. In my own high school experience, I had no idea what Blackboard was. I thought that Blackboard was what teachers write on in the classroom! This needs to change. We need to begin to expose students to Blackboard at a much younger age so that they can become familiar with it. Blackboard can be an effective tool when teaching. Students can basically “drop off” their assignments into the respective link. Also, students can take quizzes, post on discussion boards, and have active chats with their teacher and other students. By having all of this available online, the students have virtually unlimited access to their teachers and course materials. Blackboard also makes things a little easier on teachers. With online quizzes and assignments, they are automatically graded by the software and are posted in an online grade book. Instead of grading, teachers can now spend more time developing lesson plans, and devoting more of their time to their students. There is exciting news in Blackboard technology. Blackboard has just released a version designed specifically for students in K-12 schools. There are some advantages for this newer version, it “enables school districts to:
- Easily provide classroom materials online with students (without having to know HTML)
- Engage parents by allowing them to view student progress
- Enable 24/7 access to learning materials in a secure environment
- Offer innovative testing methods and self-assessments for individualized learning paths” (2006).
These things maybe great for teachers, students and parents but what does it all mean? It means that Blackboard is an effective tool that can be utilized by everyone being affected by the education process.
There is another effective tool in the modern repertoire of teachers. Inspiration software is more of a study tool than it is anything else. Inspiration software “is a tool that helps organize thoughts--for teach