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The links below are categorized to help you find Web 2.0 tools that might be of use to the K-12 classroom teacher. (Disclaimer: It is highly recommended that the individual teacher carefully preview any sites before sharing materials in the classroom with students!)

At the University of North Carolina, for example, administrators created a pair of dummy Facebook profiles to demonstrate what can happen when students reveal too much information about themselves. These dummy personas, Ivana Bea Stalked and Lloyed Unemployed, reveal more info about themselves than you’d probably want to encounter, from their personal contact information to images of what they look like inebriated or in limited clothing.

Last fall, Malavenda caught a group of students selling cocaine and kicked them off campus. In response, they started a Facebook group called “We hate Pablo,” complete with directions to his house and instructions to hurt and eliminate him.

Or should schools stick to doing what they know best and leave it to higher ed to tackle these issues when students graduate and move on? The answer is probably somewhere in between. Schools, quite rightly, are concerned about online safety and student responsibility, yet it’s hard to teach proper behavior in a vacuum. Given the current environment, though, is it possible to craft the right kind of compromise and make it useful to students and teachers alike?

I created a music based teaching system called Sounds into Syllables® which is designed to assist these children with their communication and social development difficulties by teaching them how to spell, read, classify words and correctly identify the facial expressions for six universal emotions. Part 1 of the system applies the musical component of ‘pitch’ or ‘tone’ to the process of learning letters and words. The child learns to listen to the letters as musical sounds as well as spoken sounds. With the mastery of the alphabet, the child begins to learn 26 different nouns (animal names). The senses of touch, sight and hearing are further integrated with the introduction of textured words, drawings and sound effects. There is an accompanying teaching book entitled A to Z Animal Book as well as a companion CD and A to Z Animal Workbook. In Part 2 of the system, the 26 animal nouns are matched to 26 related verbs such as dog/bark and lion/roar. There is a second book entitled Animals in Action with the textured words and drawings of the animals in their passive and active states. The child learns the related verbs in the same way he/she learned the nouns. To establish the conceptual relationship between the animal and its action, an animated computer program has been designed specifically for the teaching system. Part 3 of the system addresses the difficulties of social interaction, by emphasizing face perception and emotion recognition. Musical harmony is introduced with the creation of six three-part harmonies each linked to the six universal emotions of happy, sad, afraid, angry, surprised and disgusted. In addition, three two-part harmonies have been created and linked to nouns, verbs and adjectives to further expand word classification for the purpose of sentence creation. These three and two-part harmonies as well as the musical alphabet have been integrated into a forty page book called The Story of Little Bear. Textured letters and color coding are used throughout the book which has also been formatted as a computer book with a number of additional features, such as rollover images and animations. In October, 2006 I implemented a research study with a group of 20 children ranging in age from 6 to 17 who were diagnosed with various forms of autism. The criteria for participation in the study were demonstrated interest in music or musical stimuli and limited or no letter/word recognition. This longitudinal study in ongoing however preliminary results are encouraging. In addition, the system is benefiting a group of children who are diagnosed with learning disabilities other than autism.

Themes in "Romeo and Juliet" is an activity which encourages students to consider the themes in "Romeo and Juliet" as compared to the music they listen to every day. Themes that surface are love, hate, parent/child conflict, friendship and more.

Teachers giving computerized tests were unaware that students were instant-messaging one another across the room.

the school district chose to start an educational campaign. High school drama students created public service announcements that aired during morning announcements emphasizing the dangers of sharing private information online and the permanency of this information for college admissions counselors and future employers. Classes were offered for staff, parents, and the community, educating them on how kids are using technology and how they can talk to them. They saw immediate results; student postings online were suddenly more appropriate, teachers proactively worked to prevent misuse of technology, and parents and adults from the community attended classes and began discussing technology use with their children.

www.MediaWise.org (Dr. David Walsh)  www.WiredSafety.org -Parent Guide and contract www.NetSmartz.org- great student scenario videos www.InternetSuperHeros.org www.ConnectWithKids.com DVDs available www.Cyberbully.org www.TeenAngels.org   www.McGruff.org/ProblemSolver/webSafety.htm www.iKeepSafe.org  (Adventures of Faux Paw the Cat- good for younger kids)

next envisioned iteration of the World Wide Web

Have students send caterpillar and butterfly questions from their worksheets to the Children's Butterfly Site (http://bsi.montana.edu/web/kidsbutterfly/) expert via email. Students can go to the Gallery page of Children's Butterfly Site (http://bsi.montana.edu/web/kidsbutterfly/) to see photographs of butterflies and moths from around the world.

The choice of activities and exercises, adapted to the level of acquisition and emerging abilities, will depend on the assessment. It is these exercises which will have to be integrated into a computer programme. A great many exercises, which are well adapted to the specificities of the autist's learning difficulties, already exist. Computerization of some of these exercises could be quite easily undertaken. One could also look at existing educational computer programmes for exercises, which although not specifically developed for autistic people, could very well be of an appropriate level and which do not, above all, present any disconcerting characteristics for autistic people. It is, moreover, in this category that the highest number of computer experiments may be found. Finally, teachers could also invent new exercises which make specific use of the progressive animation and integration capacities of several of the new tool's sensorial modes.

Web 2.0 is about users and content instead of surfing on the Internet. It's more like what can the Internet do for me as a creator, a collaborator, an active participant,rather than a passive viewer of what is out there on the web.

Technology Breakthrough in Communicating with Autistic ChildrenAuthor: mom_to_one, 05 16th, 2008 CALIFORNIA – New technologies are helping autistic children communicate like never before. At the Pacific Autism Center for Education in Santa Clara, each morning begins with a Power Point presentation, launching a day filled with technology and a new type of autism therapy. Two out of every three students at the center are non-verbal, but thanks to a voice output device 12-year-old Alex is able to get the snacks he craves. Malique also uses the device to “talk” for him. “The largest benefit is the ability to give them a voice, gives them a voice that offers a breadth of options and the third benefit is the social interactions that come from having the ability to speak,” explained the center’s Kurt Ohlfs. Technology also makes communicating less cumbersome. Imagine trying to carry around a book with pictures of everything you wanted to convey in a day. Now the students have all that information at their fingertips; 21-year-old Daniel is using a more advanced, hand held device that offers him a menu with hundreds of icon options. He selects the ones he wants and the computer talks in sentences, conveying his thoughts. “It’s amazing when we’ve given some of this technology to our students and it’s opened up that door and now the students are surprisingly prolific when it comes to expressing their thoughts,” said Ohlfs.