There are new web 2.0 tools appearing every day. Although some of these tools were not originally meant for use in the classroom, they can be extremely effective learning tools for today's technology geared students and their venturesome teachers. Many of these teachers are searching for the latest products and technologies to help them find easier and efficient ways to create productive learning in their students. More and more teachers are using blogs, podcasts and wikis, as another approach to teaching. We have created a list of 100 tools we think will encourage interactivity and engagement, motivate and empower your students, and create differentiation in their learning process.
The top five search tools for finding Flickr images are designed to help teachers and students locate just the right image for use in any subject area and project. Without these tools finding the right image on this image hosting site is often an impossible, or at least a tedious, task. The value of this site is its ability to provide digital pictures which are often impossible for a teacher to obtain any other way.
Like everything else on the internet, trying to find something is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. This where the top five search tools become valuable resources for teachers and students trying to find images comes into play. These search engines are specifically designed to search the more than three billion pictures on the Flickr hosting site.
The Professional Learning Board (PLB) offers a whack of resources to parents and teachers, including this dedicated toolbar for Firefox (Windows, Mac, or Linux), which is also availablle for Internet Explorer 5.0+
The Professional Learning Board deserves a thorough exploration to see what else it has in stock for: "professional development, instructional strategies, classroom management, online teaching and learning tools, virtual classrooms, continuing ed, and school" (2008.07.30).
"Pics4Learning is a copyright-friendly image library for teachers and students.... Unlike many Internet sites, permission has been granted for teachers and students to use all of the images donated to the Pics4Learning collection" (About Pics4Learning, 2008.09.03).
Tools for Educators offers free worksheet generators, printables makers and a host of programs for teachers to make resources for lessons, lesson plans and printable materials for classes.
The six top free online tools were selected from available web 2.0 tools for teaching and learning using presentations, blogging, and bookmarking online resources. There are many excellent online tools available in these three categories, making the selection difficult at best. However, the selection was made based on reviewing available online resources along with other contributions and feedback from teachers.
This site contains resources for those who are just beginning and those who wish to explore in greater depth three important topics in higher education today, particularly as they are related to teacher preparation.
The three topics of this website are:
Multimedia Records of Practice to enable faculty to make public their typically invisible practice of teaching and to support their scholarship of teaching activities;
Electronic Portfolios to enable faculty and students to reflect upon their learning or professional development or to support program or institutional assessment; and
Digital Storytelling to enable faculty, students, and others to easily create digital stories with which they may share their reflections on their experiences in learning.
"This resource aims to help those making decisions about their use of freely available 'Web 2.0' interactive and collaborate e-learning tools" (Welcome to Web2Access)..