www.ekoloko.com
One of the Web 2.0 tools that I found that I felt would benefit my students is ekoloko.com. This website is a virtual community where kids discover the world through games and quests while learning values and skills that will help them become responsible and involved individuals. It’s almost like a SecondLife program for kids. Students are able to create and personalize their own characters, chat and hangout with friends. While on this site, students are faced with adversities that help them understand the world better.
This website targets children and parents and provides a way for children to become involved in a safe social network that actually teaches them valuable life skills. One of the things I like about this site is that children cannot sign up without parental permission. There is also a plethora of educational benefits that this site provides! For instance, students develop social and interpersonal skills through communicating with others on the site. They learn how a community operates and the importance of their role in providing a safe community. They develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills as they play the games and journey through the virtual world. The site also teaches about recycling and being eco-friendly.
I would use this website in my classroom as a supplement to our science unit on pollution and social studies unit on communities. Each student would create an ‘avatar’ and work through the site. At the end of each week, I would check their progress and see how they are interacting within the site.
Ekoloko also provides various tutorials about different topics. For example, if a student wants to learn more about the environment, they can click on a screen that shows them the importance of recycling. They can also play games that demonstrate the importance of recycling for a community. Another activity that I would incorporate into my classroom is for students to create and/or report on what they learned about a topic, like recycling.
References
Ekoloko.com Staff. (2009). Ekoloko. Retrieved October 11, 2009 from http://ekoloko.com
Image courtesy of Creative Commons license at flickr.com
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