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QuizBean (formerly known as QuizPoo) is an online quiz creator for teachers and trainers to help them assess student learning

13 great products, apps and tools for preparing students for tests.

This article, from eSchool News, summarizes the features of two free social networking sites, Wiggio and Sophia. In Wiggio online groups can be formed and then users can communicate through email, voice, and text messages, and can share links and files. Teachers can use Wiggio to "set up chat rooms for after-school help" and for "peer-to-peer collaboration within group projects." Sophia "has been described as a mashup of Facebook, Wikipedia, and YouTube focused solely on education." It consists of user created "learning packets" on various subjects that use Web 2.0 tools. Each packet can also be rated on a five star system by the users as well as be given a "green checkmark" to be considered academically sound by experts in the appropriate field.

A librarian uses web 2.0 tools such as RSS and bookmarking to incorporate a real world event into the curriculum to enhance information literacy.

Use Web 2.0 tools to take the students from the classroom into the real world.

"Social media may have started out as a fun way to connect with friends, but it has evolved to become a powerful tool for education and business. Sites such as Facebook and Twitter and tools such as Skype are connecting students to learning opportunities in new and exciting ways. Whether you teach an elementary class, a traditional college class, or at an online university, you will find inspirational ways to incorporate social media in your classroom with this list."

Great list from Online University with ideas for using social media in the classroom.

A great resource site full of rubrics to evaluate web 2.0 tools including cooperative learning ,mind maps, online discussion boards, multimedia presentations etc.

This is a news announcing that a free plug-in designed to integrate open-source learning management system Moodle with Microsoft's Live@edu services will be available for download from Moodle.org on Thursday, February 23. Window live is a mature social online tool while Moodle is famous for its education use, when these two integrated to each other, students can benefit from window live's social functions within Moodle's and log into Moodle from window live ID.

It is a smart move as Moodle has realized the necessity to integrating online social tools into e-learning environment, in order to motivate students' learning.

This teacher makes a really strong argument that you should not feel that you have nothing important to say. This is the way to make some strong networked relationships. I like her quote "This has led to many great conversations with other educators about teaching issues." Blogging has connected her to peers throughout the world. I find that being an online educator is lonely so this may be the way to go to share resources and to discuss with others that share our online world.

I really enjoyed reading this article because I'm feeling the same excitement as the author did when she first began blogging. While I'm just learning how to "officially" blog, I have been using Edmodo with my students as a way to connect with my students outside my classroom. It allows us to communicate and ask questions to one another outside of normal school hours, yet in a more structured classroom like forum, unlike Facebook. But because it works similar to Facebook, the students love it and don't mind logging on and doing their assignments. One day when I was out sick, I was able to log on an have real time discussions with my students. If they had questions about the assignment they were able to ask. They can also turn in their assignments via Edmodo instead of waiting for the next day/week. My feelings are if the students are into it, then it's something we need to be doing as well to keep up with them. Teachers who use Web 2.0 tools such as blogging have an advantage over those that don't because these are the social networks that students know and are familiar with. Also, the author of this article points out the fact that teachers have a new way of connecting to each other and share ideas. From what I remember when I was younger, the traditional teacher's only way of communicating and sharing ideas or concerns with other teachers were via phone or before/after school meetings. I don't know how often that actually happened, but now with blogging you can share your information any time with any body.

This article discusses WikiTrust, a tool that students can use to evaluate the trustworthiness of information posted online. As educators, we need to teach kids how to use the Internet wisely and how to gain valid information.

This article made me think of some of our discussion topics this week about blogging and how it engages students. I had wondered about the use of threaded discussions rather than a blog. However, this article focuses on how students preferred the blogging. They felt an online discussion was more academic whereas blogging allowed students to engage with their learning by applying to their existing lives and knowledge base. Students felt they could develop their own voice and create a more meaningful sense of community with their online classmates. I thought this was interesting because I have used both forms in my VHS and f2f classes. I really find the threaded discussions to be more productive, but it appears that students feel the blogging is more productive. I will need to rethink my tools.

This article showcases a virtual cultural exchange program between a school in New York and China. The students use web 2.0 tools to collabaroate and learn from each other in what could be a new wave of cultural exchange programs.

Our school was part of the NetGeneration of Youth program and we had a cultural exchange with two sister schools, one in LA and the other in Uganda. The students communicated over Ning and Skype and they collaborated during two celebrations "parties with a purpose" which allowed for a sharing of menus, music, and stories. The culminating project was a student/teacher exchange for three weeks in each country.

Degreed is a free service that monitors and validates your lifelong educational learning from internet learning and real world degrees.

The author shares a new collaborative tool, Pen.io, which can be used by students to create a working portfolio and can be shared, published and owned. Although it is similar to google docs, the author likes it better for its simplicity, the ownership status it provides, its content-focused nature and the control it allows over who can edit it.

Great tool. And, yes it is easier to use than Google Docs. Of course "easier" means fewer features, but it also means more simplicity. Plus, with a few HTML basics there is more you can do than with G-Docs.

This is exactly what I am looking for to complement some of my online courses. Items such as safety contracts need signatures and require the tedious use of a scanner or fax machine. This Pen.io would be a great acessory to make these types of task very simple and personal. Unlike google docs it provides much more controls over many items.

A wonderful updated directory of web 2.0 tools.

Web 2.0 directory

This article by Sam Somani, explained the new fad at universities call MOOCs- massive open online courses. These courses are free and open to the public, and thousands of students can take each course. The author, being skeptical of MOOCS, decided to try one. He found that not only were students benefiting from the course, the quality of instructional videos was such that it could be used as a tool to ,"to see on a fundamental level how other schools may approach teaching differently and how these schools are able to better reach out to students through their teaching."

This article written by two Danish academics, Johan Jessen and Anker Helms Jorgensen, discusses the issue of determining whether sources are credible and how we can do this online. They explain the credibility can be random and that perceived trustworthiness plus perceived expertise equals perceived credibility. However, they put forth that aggregated trustworthiness can actually be an accurate determination of whether information is credible. Readers can look at "likes" and user evaluations to determine if a source is trustworthy. As users of Web 2.0 tools we must become media literate and be able to determine which sources are trustworthy.

This site overviews the importance of using media in instruction and provides some Web 2.0 tools to achieve animation for teaching.

This is a very cool article. I loved the comparison of a teachers introduction of education background is compared to a computer " It's like going to Dell's website to shop for a computer and getting nothing but photos of the factories and descriptions of how the computers were built." Use a video to introduce ourselves and explain all we can do in the classroom. We should be making them look forward to what they can do during the year with me. Very Cool.

This is a very cool article. I loved the comparison of a teachers introduction of education background is compared to a computer " It's like going to Dell's website to shop for a computer and getting nothing but photos of the factories and descriptions of how the computers were built." Use a video to introduce ourselves and explain all we can do in the classroom. We should be making them look forward to what they can do during the year with me. Very Cool.

University students create videos for younger, k12 students to help inspire future computer science students. This is two fold. The process of creating the video also reinforces topics mastered while benefiting society.

This is amazing on so many levels. Thanks for sharing. For us- great teaching resources, but also a great learning tool for the MIT students.

This articled details the efforts being made by New York's DOE to limit inappropriate online communication between teachers and students, while still allowing for constructive and appropriate use of social media in schools. It offers examples of teachers and students who had inappropriate interactions via social media such as facebook but also notes that students need to be taught to use such tools appropriately.

With CCSS upon us, this website is a great tool for students to work through informational texts, vocabulary and grammar online - at grade level. There are free samples to try out - then it seems you need to commit to purchasing. Very accessible and the free samples are worthwhile.