Sunday, February 3, 2013

Claco

I recently became aware of a Web 2.0 site for teachers. It's called Claco and it's a website that allows teachers to share and explore different lesson plans that align with the Common Core curriculum. From my understanding, it seems like a bit of a mixture between Facebook and Pinterest. Teachers are able to create "binders" for their different classes/subjects that they teach. They are able to put lessons found on Claco into their binders so they are able to easily refer to them and implement them into their own classroom. To become a member of the site, you must be invited. I requested an invite and hope to learn more about it soon! In the meantime, check out these videos I found which describes some of the features of Calco.


This is a video from the creator of Claco. He describes basically what Claco is and why this website came to be.


This is a video made by a Claco user. He is describing a basic how-to get started with the site.

3 comments:

  1. Wow Mandy! I find Claco very interesting. It could definitely be useful as a telecolaborative tool and creates a way for educators to efficiently collaborate, but at a macro-level. In the second video, I liked the livebinder.com website. It seemed to be a great way to collaborate with teachers in the same school system. This also connects with Cheryl's idea about a telecollaborative project among ES science teachers and has the potential of filling a huge need among teachers in the same school system. I think it is ridiculous that classroom teacher still work in relative isolation. It is an inefficient way to run a school system and completely unnecessary because of the tools you just discussed! So thanks :)

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  2. I agree, Natalie! I think especially with the Common Core and teachers teaching many of the same units/objectives across states, we should be collaborating with one another and sharing the lessons and ideas to meet the needs of students. I liked the binders too. I hope to be hearing from the website soon, but since it's still in the beta phase, they say it can take 2-3 weeks to get membership for the site!!

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  3. Intersting that a young whipper-snapper just out of high school is so aware of the problems that teachers face with collaborative planning and is trying to find a solution that will ease the workload. Actually he may not be the one trying to find the solution, maybe he's just presenting the information in the video. At any rate, this kind of thinking is a long time coming. After watching the video I'm anxious to give this tool a try. I remember last year when Anne Arundel County was launching the fractions module of Common Core. We attended a half day of training and then it was all up to us. Teachers were scrambling to create materials and I'm certain there was a tremendous duplication of effort within the county. How nice it would have been to have a tool like this rather than the convoluted network we set up to share ideas through email, Blackboard, and basket mail. Natalie is spot on with her comment about classroom teachers still working in relative isolation. I agree with her completely. It is unneccesary. Thank for sharing this tool as a possible way to share the work load and expertise when it comes to creating lessons.

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