Web 2.0 Tools

For me, the web 2.0 tool that stood out the most was wetpaint.com. I used it with two of the teams in our school - 7 classes - and it was a valuable tool for the students to use to share their research. They enjoyed customizing their sites and working collaboratively through the wiki pages.

New Literacies

In order for students to become literate in Web 2.0 technologies, educators need to be flexible and allow students to use technology in producing evidence of learning. For example, educators need to move away from traditional paper/pencil tests, reports and poster making assessments and instead allow students to create web sites, wikis, podcasts, videos and more. However, this requires the availability of technology in the school and knowledgeable educators. Our district recently received a massive budget cutback and we are losing technology that we have had in the past. This is a challenge as we seek to best utilize what we do have. Fortunately, our technology department provides support and training for educators who try to meet the challenge of incorporating technology into our curriculum.

Podcasting

It's not difficult to locate podcasts that are appropriate for students. Educators may use them to introduce a new topic or to enhance a lesson. Podcasting can be fun for students and provides another means of communicating what they have learned. They may create radio talk shows for a biography project, or a news type program to share research. Doing so would meet NETS standards 1ab, 2abd, 5d, and 6abcd.

Photo Sharing

I have found that online photo sharing is relatively simple. Most of the sites simply have "upload" buttons and then a space for captions, tags and comments. I enjoyed using Flickr and will continue to use it. Photo sharing sites could be used in the classroom to reinforce vocabulary. This would meet NETS 2b and 6a.

Social Bookmarking

While I can see the value of social bookmarking, I have to admit that I absolutely hated Delicious. I found that getting started was just difficult and the whole site seemed too busy for me. I will spend more time on this one. :)

RSS Feeds

I enjoyed searching for the RSS feeds that would best suit my library. There are many feeds offered through the School Library Journal that would aid in my professional development. For students, I could find a variety of feeds and post them on my library website! This was great!

Wikis!

My students use wikis in the library while conducting research. Of course, the most popular is Wikipedia. Some of our librarians do not allow the kids to use it, but I do - as long as they can back up the information they gather with another source.

This year, I had a group of 6th grade students create a wiki about Ancient Greece and a 7th grade group created a wiki containing their animal research projects. It was wonderful! The students worked collaboratively and they truly enjoyed the experience!

These activities met NETS standards 1ab, 2abd, 3bc, 5abd and 6abc.

August 17, 2009

While I have browsed a few blogs over the years, this is the first blog that I have created! I am excited about getting myself familiar with all the tools and features of blogger and I hope that it's not blocked on our school network because I would love to use it with my students! Our high school is a CFF school, and the students there use blogs in the classrooms. A few of my ideas...

Students may use blogs to:

- respond to a journal prompt

-write poetry

-respond to literature...maybe answer a question from the point of view of a character in the story

-react to current events

Integrating any of the above ideas into a lesson would meet NETS standards 2a,b and 6 a,b,d.