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This is a nice alternative to WebEx. It gives you a virtual classroom to work in where you can store documents of most types, present them in class, do all the things Web Ex does like web conferencing, whiteboard, etc. I am posting this in their virtual classroom where you can access the web collectively. I found this to explore Web 2.0 tools used for learning.

Alyn, Thank you for sharing all this valuable information. I'm taking notes. In my "free" time, I'm going to be figuring how to implement all these new technologies into my classroom. I'm feeling submerged by technology at this point, but like it!!!

This article is long however it gives some great information about using YouTube in the classroom. It is divided up into a few chapters so not all of it needs to be consumed. In short it is a research study about how educators use the web2.0 tool YouTube. It talks about how we can integrate it in the class, features of the site, and how to use the site. It also highlights some of the problems that came up with usage during the study.

Awesome! I love YouTube and I definitely utilize this tool A LOT in my high school English classroom. I enjoy how youtube also has the ability to focus on strictly educational materials. Visuals are so important for students to create concrete connections. Great artice!

YouTube is my favorite video-based network. Videos are intrinsically motivating and engaging. I agree with the point in the article that the videos that are informative, humorous, current, interesting and engaging are most preferred by students, but instructors choose a video based on its instructional value, not simply due to its humorous content. The article entirely and detailly introduces the tool. Additionally, the following article is also a great material to learn YouTube. Duffy, P. (2007). Engaging the YouTube Google‐Eyed Generation: Strategies for Using Web 2.0 in Teaching and Learning. In European Conference on eLearning, ECEL.

This article describes a high school teacher's yearslong journey in introducing and managing Twitter in her classroom. She begins with this observation, "Students participated more readily when the tools they already used outside school were acceptable in the classroom," and then goes on to describe how she made school constituents comfortable with her adoption of the platform. This is followed by the actual ways in which she used it (announcements - sharing articles blogs - classtags - extension of class discussion- digital citizenship - Tweetdeck). She addressed one of my questions about her choice to use Twitter, sharing that it was the unreliability of the LMS that led her to use Twitter from sharing information at first, but over time, she observed many benefits such as clarity in writing through the mandatory economy. Even after the expansion to 280 characters, only 5% of tweets were longer than 140 words! One powerful takeaway was the experience of a long haired male student who had the experience of being listened to without judgment. Twitter in her experience allowed for marginalized voices to be heard.

Tess (2013) provides a great review of the literature on the role of social media in the higher education context. Tess (2013) suggests that as instructors look for ways to incorporate technology to mediate and enhance their instructions as well as promote active learning among students, they increasingly turn to different social media tools. The author argues that the current literature on the integration of social media in higher education are limited to self-reported data and content analyses. Therefore, he provides a summary of literature on the role of social media in the higher education classroom as well as discusses their limitations. Various studies (cited below) explored the role of social media and SNSs in different contexts of education -teaching learning process. These studies have demonstrated interesting and useful results. Tess (2013), in addition to keyword-specific searches, used a "snowball" method for finding the articles from the relevant articles cited in the literature reviewed. To narrow the range of the review, he chooses articles on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, blog and LinkedIn. Tess (2013) provides a brief definition of each of these five SNSs. He also looks at the social impact of these popular SNS tools. The author looks at the factors motivating the educators to use social media in higher education classrooms, such as: the changing nature of the student, the changing knowledge consumption relationship, and the de-emphasis of institutionally provided learning and emergence of "user-driven" education (Selwyn, 2010). The author provides platform-specific affordances and drawbacks in terms of their application in the higher education space. Tess (2013) argues that although the infrastructure to support social media's presence exists in most universities today, instructors have been slow in adopting the tool as an educational one. Those who are adopting are still likely in the experimental stage. He admits that his literature rev

In this article, two Australian researchers investigated whether Twitter can be used to foster enhanced student engagement within a university level sport marketing course. 68 students participated in the study. 59% of the class did not have an existing Twitter account and had to sign up for one to participate in the study. There were two aspects of Twitter user during the course. First, students would participate in two discussion lectures, which was structured much the same as a Twitter chat, with questions posted in advance of the actual discussion. The second aspect was to regularly post contemporary issues in sport marketing that coincided with the course content. Much like EME 6414, students used a hashtagged course code to be able to track the activity and respond to their classmates. I thought it was interesting that the researchers explicitly advised existing Twitter users that they did not have to censor their regular Twitter activity, as the instructor would only follow the course hashtag. This appears to be a clear acknowledgement of the potential for context collapse when social media is incorporated into an educational setting. Questionnaires were administered to broadly measure aspects of student engagement. The results suggest that Twitter was effective in the university classroom as engagement levels increased over the semester. Twitter made it easier for students to connect with both the instructor and other students and extend that connection beyond the lecture time in the classroom. These networking tools also allow students to take on a more active role in the co-creation of the course content. I think this is one of the most significant advantages of incorporating social networking elements into the classroom. The biggest limitations of the study were its small sample size and homogeneous population. Future studies should include more students from various disciplines.

It took me a very long time to find the comment button to add another thought to my original post. Not nearly as noticeable as other discussion platforms. Anyway...I wanted to add that this article was very appropriate right now because the TA for EME 5608 is currently conducting research on a very similar topic, specifically "when and how social media apps like Instagram are used by students (without instructor participation) to support social interaction and build social connections in online courses." I know some of you are also in that course and I'm curious what your opinions are on the experiment? Do you think that interacting on Instagram has increased your social connections and added benefit to the learning experience?

It also took me a long time to find the comment button! You are not alone in that!

Huh! I did not know that something like this existed! I actually had to look up what QR codes are before I understood what it could be used for. I thought it was just a bar code for scanning identification or something.

I've used QR codes in the classroom before! Such a great tool and fun for the kids!

I love these examples! I've used QR codes in the classroom by sending my kids on math scavenger hunts around the classroom. They then had to solve a math problem and scan the QR code with the class iPads to see if they got their answer correct. The kids loved having that extra piece of technology during their math lesson!

Edmodo provides a safe and easy way for your class to connect and collaborate, share content, and access homework, grades and school notices. The goal is to help educators harness the power of social media to customize the classroom for each and every learner. Seems like it may be a better alternative than using Facebook in the classroom to make sure privacy issues are not a problem.

Purdue has developed and deployed a large suite of digital technologies designed to improve student success. They developed this tool - Mixable, that enables informaiton to be delivered though a mobile device, Facebook application, or web browser. All these technologies are designed to connect the classroom with the class using the connections and devices common to students such as dropbox, video/image sharing tool, etc.

What is Poll Everywhere? The fastest way to create stylish real-time experiences for events using mobile devices Poll Everywhere replaces expensive proprietary audience response hardware with standard web technology. It's the easiest way to gather live responses in any venue: conferences, presentations, classrooms, radio, tv, print - anywhere.

I think the basic "free" features allow you just to poll one survey question at a time. What's really cool about it is that students can text their answers in. I am not familiar with it, but it is a great way to generate discussion within a classroom, blog, or website.

Thanks Dana!

This article offers a rethinking of Lev Vygotsky' s social constructivism theory Applied in the classroom use of social media. Presenting two case studies, one with media literacy course using Facebook page and the other with communication in justice course using Wiki for collaboration, the article provided both professors' and students' perspectives on advantages and challenges of using social media for learning.

Since we are talking about crowdsourcing, this article explains how a teacher/trainer could use a Wiki with their students and some great ideas.

I see that it mentions pbworks and that is the wiki that I learned on which just happens to be the link I just shared to the EME6414 group and involved students from various cohorts crowdsourcing to create a list of various Web2.0 tools. I have now used the word "crowdsourcing" several times today. :)

I am intrigued by Wikis, and look forward to working with them. I was particularly interested in the suggestion, for math classes, to post word problems and have student work on them together. I am currenly helping to build a statistics class, and would - given more development time and more knowledge on my part - recommend a wiki to him for that very activity.

This tool was created based on research that identified barriers higher ed instructors faced when incorporating social media into their classrooms. After completed some questions, the tool uses algorithms based on pedagogical principles to suggest tools, strategies and guidelines for incorporating social media in higher ed classrooms.

Piazza is a free online gathering place where students can ask, answer, and explore 24/7, under the guidance of their instructors. Students as well as instructors can answer questions, fueling a healthy, collaborative discussion.

This is a great tool to enhance interaction in the online classroom. It allows the creation of avatars with the addition of voice so you can interact with your students in ways that capture attention, motivate interaction and helps explain concepts to key audiences from varying perspectives.

Wow, I really like this tool, seems like Voki could improve all kinds of classes, especially foreign language or reading classes for students that may get nervous speaking aloud. Is there a tool on the teacher's side though that prints out a report of the scores on the oral tests that the students spoke of? Just curious....thanks. (O:

Use this tool to create and share podcasts. Find and use existing podcast mixes to enhance your online classroom.

EdSurge recommended this editorial by the founders of wikispaces. As a teacher and future edtechnologist, I think it's interesting.

Couldn't reply to Vanessa's Post, created new one....It makes sense that researchers are taking steps to understand the role of the educator when considering Web 2.0 tools. I don't think this is a simple task for an educator to incorporate these tools into their cirriculum. In addition, I think great thought is needed to make sure that the tools are not just being used for the sake of using them but that they add/enhance learning. While the article suggests that the burden has fallen on the teacher to make use of this, I think it would be wise for institutions to develop a support system that works with the educators. After all, the institution provides them with a chalk board, a classroom, an overhead projector, etc. Why not provide them with proper training and course design suggestions using Web 2.0 technology?