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Throughout the ages of educational ideas and philosophies teachers have been big fans of having their students keep a journal. Journals are kept in language arts, foreign language classes, and I have seen them in science classes. Students don't particularly like doing them unless they enjoy writing. If given a choice between keeping a journal in their spiral notebook and keeping it online, I would wager that a majority of students in this digital age will prefer to keep it online. So why not give them the choice and tool of Penzu.

Create awesome animated maps. Have your students create a roadmap of places they have been. Have students add video and pictures of those places and create a timeline on how long it took for the trip.

So you've been using google apps at school for years and now your school is jumping on the iPad train (because everyone else is). When you want to use google docs on this new iPad, be ready for a surprise.

There are some amazing tools listed on these sites, including a Mind42 map of Web 2.0 Tools. I can see that my map is quite lacking compared to these. But, now I have an idea as to what to aim for. It would be great to set my students loose of some of these tools. "If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow." (John Dewey). This has been one of my favourite quotes along with "We need to prepare our students/children for jobs that have not been created yet" (Unknown). For me, they sum up what we as teachers need to strive for and that we need to keep on trying to stretch ourselves and our students...after all, we are 13% of the way through the 21st Century. It's exciting.

An integral part of nearly all online classes is the threaded discussion-it is where students interact on a nearly daily basis, posting their thoughts and information on main discussion topics, your postings, and the postings of other students. While you have measured control over the content, length, and tone of student postings, you have full control over your own. To ensure that your responses to student postings in discussion are effective, incorporate the following ideas:

In this article, Errol Sull provides us many good reminders of what we should be doing to make sure our online learning environment is effective and positive for our students. I feel confident in his guidelines because he's been teaching in the online environment for fifteen years. His suggestions also make sense in both an online and f2f discussion.

This article by Errol Sull presents us with suggestions for online discussions. I personally have been nervous about having all class online discussions after a Moodle incident I had last year. Fortunately, my Moodle settings were set so that only two students were able to get a at each other. I will apply these ideas to my classes in August.

This article discusses research that has been done regarding the needs of people to obtain media and information literacy skills in order to better many of their experiences in 21st century society. The article states that "knowing how to search for, analyze, and interpret information is a skill that will be used for more than just writing a good research paper: People use media literacy skills for applying for jobs online, getting relevant health information, and sifting through online educational opportunities, for example." Ten recommendations for developing stronger media and information literacy skills are given in the article. Legislative efforts from the federal government to provide funding in support of programs that help to develop these 21st century skills are also discussed.

This article discusses how the implementation of iPads in education has been successful in some schools.

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.

I have been hearing a lot of buzz in education lately about this site.

Exploring wikis has been an adventure. But before I embark on this journey for a classroom assignment, I just have to cover all the basics. Being able to objectively assess this environment is important. This resource has provided a decent, comprehensive rubric

Great find Kae! I sent it to Diigo! for future use!

Maryellen Weimer, in her article sets out clear reasons why collaborative work, enhances creativity '. Students can see how different perspectives, constructive deliberation, questioning, and critical analysis can result in better solutions and performance.' Working effectively in groups demands students to think outside the box, and use multiple creative skills.

It was many years ago that I attended a seminar at the former GE Plastics headquarters here (now Sabic) outlining what for years has been obvious. Two key points included: 1) the need to adjust the school calendar, both in number of days and hours per day from the agrarian-based schedule which so many districts and schools still follow; 2) the need to include more group work in syllabi and lesson plans. The presenter emphasized that companies do not want to hire a person who is intelligent if that person cannot work well in a collaborative group situation. Opportunities abound to prepare our students for higher education and careers through group work in face-to-face instruction, the flipped classroom concept and the design of VHS courses.

If you are trying to envision ways to utilize G Apps in school, this offers some helpful info.

Thanks Sterling, This is a great resource. I just watched the "32 Ways to Use Google Apps in the Classroom". It's got a great video embedded in it where the students are all working together to write an election speech for their classmate.

Hi Sterling and Colleen, Thanks for sharing, I have been to various Google Professional Development Classes, but this really sums it up in a nutshell.

This article brings up some very good points about turning to e-books for textbooks in the classroom. The research hasn't been done on the effects of doing so....what would the effects be on students and their reading skills, learning, or the repercussions on teaching in the classroom? Also, they bring up a valid concern of how much control this would all give to Apple?

This article deals specifically with how online writing through the use of either asynchronous or synchronous tools can enhance the traditional classroom. The use of a blog to discuss ideas and debate issues may not be as dynamic or interactive as some of the other Web 2.0 tools we have been discussing and using. However, this article makes the point that using blogs can make content more engaging, provide a way for students to be reflective, allow them the opportunity to practice presenting ideas and arguments and finding their voice. The author, Robert Baird from the University of Illinois, argues that these discussion tools are not used up to their potential. I resonated with this article because as a teacher of an online course that uses discussion threads extensively, I completely agree that students level of engagement and understanding of issues, as well as becoming better thinkers, finding their voice and being forced to use evidence in their answers is remarkable.

This is a PBS Frontline series that has been updated since its original showing. It is good to show parts in class - it has short segments that students identify with. Also check out the "Growing Up Online" portion of this.

This blog post describes the Web 2.0 tools that are being used in the author's school to help students reach each level of Bloom's Taxonomy.

This article is about using predicative analytics to improve instruction. Predicative analytics has been used in industry for years. Netfix will send you suggestions for your next movie pick; Big Y will generate a coupon for a product they think I much like to try. By looking at a student's "breadcrumbs", we should be able to improve instruction. Data driven instruction is here to stay. We need to able to understand the data and do something with it.

There is lots going on in regards to the offering in of online learning in post secondary education.  A new organization Coursera offers college level courses using new technology with well known professors.  How will this effect the world of education going forward?

Very interesting summary of MOOCs. They just downplayed the low percentage of students who complete the courses. (Though Thrunn's Artificial Intelligence graduated 23,000 students!)

Free courses that are available online allow for students of all backgrounds to have the opportunity to get higher education. Some programs allow students to receive a certificate that courses have been completed. Does this stunt a students social growth and/or ability to develop effective communication?

Many educators are looking for more outside the box methods to learning and understanding. Many teachers have tried implementing more technology inside the classroom or tried to create a more blended classroom. This article shows another method of instruction that brings higher order of thinking and that is using games to differentiate instruction. Our students have been playing games since they were no more than 2 years old. Why not implement a learning method that they are already accustomed to. This has transformed classroom learning into a more interactive learning style that has shown great success. The articles talks about the importance of moving your lessons to the students strengths so why not lean them towards what they know best? Using games for higher learning is no different then a classroom review. It is no different then a quiz. The only difference is that it is more interactive and it is electronic. This style of high order thinking or critical thinking creates a learning environment that is geared to challenge the students in a way that they want to be challenged.

I have never been a fan of lecturing during class...for either the high school or college classes I teach. If there is information I need to share, I will always use a Power Point (or something similar) and then make those files available for students to download. But even when presenting information in this manner, I continue to engage students with questions, asking for real life examples, etc. And I limit the time, or break it up with another activity. It seems to work pretty well and the ideas from this article pretty much confirm what I have always felt about the lecture style class.