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The Victorian DEECD website has an article on the recent research and findings on the effectiveness of Web2.0 in the classroom.

"Classroom Collaboration Using Social Bookmarking Service Diigo * ShareShare * RecommendLog in to Recommend by Michael F. Ruffini Published on Tuesday, September 27, 20110 Comments Classroom Collaboration Using Social Bookmarking Service Diigo By Michael F. Ruffini * Social bookmarking websites enhance and improve the learning experience by encouraging group collaboration and making organizing and saving web resources faster and easier for students. * Social bookmarking services offer greater scope for research, integration, and collaboration compared to the more traditional bookmarking applications such as browsers, which offer limited functionality. * Among social bookmarking services, Diigo has features and functions that make it useful for the classroom, giving instructors tools for setting up groups of students, highlighting key information, and commenting. Classroom collaboration is an area that benefits directly from today's Internet experience in that students can develop their potential for learning by becoming more actively involved. Indeed, they can learn to approach and solve problems by collaborating with other students and their teachers. Social bookmarking websites give them opportunities to discover and organize information. While many social bookmarking sites offer some collaboration opportunities, I have found that Diigo (Digest of Internet Information, Groups and Other stuff) combines a user-friendly social platform with bookmarking features, making it an effective research, integration, and collaboration tool for use in the classroom. In this article, I compare the benefits of traditional and social bookmarking websites. Then, using Diigo as a focus, I explore the possible uses and benefits of social bookmarking for research and collaboration in the classroom. Traditional Bookmarking Teachers and students routinely use the Internet for archiving, organizing, and sharing information associated with their research and

"As the character of Mark Zuckerberg popularly said in the movie "The Social Network," "People want to go online and check out their friends, so why not build a website that offers that? Friends, pictures, profiles, whatever you can visit, browse around, maybe it's someone you just met at a party. Eduardo, I'm not talking about a dating site; I'm talking about taking the entire social experience of college and putting it online." Social networking is changing the way the world is doing everything, from the way people get information to the way people communicate, and, most importantly, the way people interact. The importance and relevance of social media outlets are growing stronger with the rapid developments of technology; however, is there a strong importance for social networking profiles like Facebook? Is tweeting really an effective form of communication. And, finally, what is the importance of Flickr? The world is greatly influenced by social networking. Why not help launch yourself into the ever-changing face of the virtual world? Consider these 10 reasons on how having a social networking profile will benefit your future. 1. Staying connected with friends Social networking is the easiest way to stay in touch with old friends, friends who don't live close to you or even just roommates. 2. For means of communication Everyone has those days when they wake up without a phone or any way to communicate with the world except through social networking. You could update your social networking profile, and one of your "followers" could even help you locate your phone. 3. Keeping up-to-date on news more quickly Some social networking sites constantly update news information. This enlightens readers and social networking profile owners. 4. Achieving a more personal connection Having a social networking profile allows you to keep informed on recent happenings with people in your network. You have something to discuss with your co-workers and friends and even a

This is an awesome resource with lots of information on different web 2.0 tools that an be effectively used in the classroom!

Great for translating Japanese terms! This is the most accurate online dictionary resource I've come across. One limitation: you need to be able to type the unknown word or phrase in Kanji or Kana (Japanese script) in order to perform an effective search. Consequently, you need to have the Japanese language text application on your computer and also know the phonetics of the data for which you are looking.