Web+2.0

This is a paper on web 2.0 online programs and pages that have a plethora of tools teachers can use in the classroom. In this paper, I go over five tools that interested me, and which I thought had further application for my self in my classroom. I can absolutely see myself using any one of these tools inside my classroom!

Web 2.0 absolutely has a place in education, and frankly, any innovation in technology that can have an impact on education should be embraced with open arms. Technology like Web 2.0 can help us to better educate students not only in the core curriculum units, such as social studies. math, science and language arts, but also integrate the use of technology, which will become more and more prevalent in their (the students) world. With the addition of new tools, we are better able to prepare students for the world they will be joining. The five tools I chose to review are presentation, research, writing, organizing, and creativity tools. With presentation tools, I can foresee my self using these a ton in my teaching. I am a big fan of PowerPoint presentations, because they help my self plan out and focus my thoughts, and "spark" my memory on information needed to be covered. What if I have a student that is missing an enormous amount of class due to illness or pro longed sickness? Using Yuvox I could create an entire lesson, record the narration for the student, and send it too him so he or she can still get all the information missed in class! That is an awesome tool, that could have tons of impact on education. The next tool I Chose are research tools. In this growing interconnected society, with information of the world at our very fingertips, it becomes important to learn how to separate fact from false, and identify the correct information. This is especially true for the social sciences, where students must master the ability to identify primary sources from secondary sources. Info Please is a type of tool that does exactly that. I could use this tool to bring up separate biographies of historical figures, and read off the information with the citations, and have my students identify weather the source is a primary or secondary. This could even be turned into a quiz, with the use of the Quiz and Poll tools, or just clickers (which are becoming more and more prevalent in high schools and middle schools). Another tool I like, are the Writing tools. One popular assignment I can remember being asked multiple times to complete growing up, was the making of a comic strip to display an idea relevant to the class. For those artistically inclined, with the ability to draw with more detail then a stick figure, this was a great assignment, but for the rest of us we generally cringed at the idea of having to draw something artistically. The comic strip makers helps to eradicate this difficulty for students who do not enjoy such artistic endeavors. They offer the ability for students to flex their creativity muscles, without the worry or fear of being mocked for their stick figure display. I could foresee my self asking my students to do a comic strip on the events of the Boston Massacre, //from the perspective of the British// to help demonstrate the Idea that all historical events have too sides and two perspectives to them. Another tool I will utilize are the organizing tools. In this busy and info rich world, organization has become an essential tool. This wiki has a multitude of tools I would like to utilize. Luminotes is a tool that can help students organize their notes for classes, although I can see note taking becoming an archaic tool and eventually run the course of cursive hand writing (I have already had many professors who simple publish all their PowerPoint slides online for the class to review). More Useful tool I would utilize are the timeline creation tools. In history, knowing the timeline is extremely important. With tools such as Dipity, I can create an interesting and unique timeline of a historical event, complete with videos, pictures, and other diagrams. I could do this with the American Revolution, and create an interesting, and exciting timeline highlighting the events of that period. The last tool I chose, are the creativity tools. Having education games in the class room are important, especially if you use them on days that you know students are already mentally checked out (like right before a big break). I observed a teacher in my field experience that had several sort of games that were designed to send a very deep message from the topic he was covering. One such game was designed to demonstrate to his students how the articles of confederation were a failure. Students were split into 13 teams, and there were 10 rounds. In each round you voted red or blue. If everyone voted blue, everyone receives 3 points. If one team votes red, that team receives 5 points, and the blue teams receives 2.75 points. The important thing to remember is that the greatest point totals for everyone comes with everyone voting blue. It continues to drop for both colors the more people vote red. What would happen, is students would advocate that "everyone votes blue" and then turn around and vote red. Not once did everyone vote blue. This game hit students so hard, that it even shook the foundation of some of their relationships with each other, with some students wondering if they can trust other students after that. It really is an amazing game all around. From the creativity tools, I could see myself using the Braingle tool to create small trivia quizzes on information I covered the day before, or simple use it as an interesting tool to engage the students at the beginning of class. Maybe at some point in the future, all students will have a computer in every class, and the first to come up with the correct answer earns 5 bonus points or something of that nature. There are a lot of ways I could use a trivia and game maker.