Web 2.0: Enhancing Education Through Technology

Find out how schools are using iPads to provide special education students and their families a lower cost device that can assist them with communication and much more. Specific app titles are suggested for use.

Talking about Web 2.0 tools and learning is meaningless as well - until you explain what the tools are, what they are used for, and what the students do with them.

I really enjoyed reading this article about making appealing and intriguing powerpoint slideshows using images that attract attention. The article is brief but they offer several sites to obtain images from and then they suggest some editing elements you can do to alter the originals and use them as talking points before during or after a presentation. The most impacting piece I got out of it was when they asked the question - would you sit through your own presentation? Yeah, no kidding, how many times have you sat through a dull presentation with nothing to keep your eyes and attention sharp and interested.

Some great tips - especially like the list of places to find images instead of the common google. Randy

I have used this type of program at Springfield College and it helped a great deal in not only monitoring students but knowing who needed help.

I love the idea of using Video Calls to teach. It allows students to have real-world meaning behind their learning since they are responsible for presenting and teaching what they have learned to other students.

Collaboration with skype and google chat, what a great way for kids from Alaska to communicate with kids from Maine. Simple and easy way to collaborate across the nation.

This article focuses on why it's so difficult to find good mobile computing apps that foster education.

I get this newsletter every day and it has so many great ideas. The only problem is which ones to use and the time to use them all. I highly recommend their newsletter.

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This is the new technology. Although as a sixth grade teacher I would envy the kindergarten teacher who has this technology, my 3 year old grandson can use the apps on my iphone. He knows which pictures to press and has learned a lot of information from the apps. It is the new Sesame Street as it keeps his attention and talks to him. As a tool it is differentiated education for each child.

Getting your Jing on!! The ability to enhance online courses with simple video elements helps students to complete assignments, readings, and discussions, and it motivates them to check into their classes more often which in turn helps instructors retain their students. The students will how to create a simple video, compress it, and access code to embed the file into a course management system or even upload it to a website, blog or YouTube. No expensive equipment or software is required, there is little to no cost, and the process is fairly quick and straightforward.

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 are games and lesson plans designed by retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor . I suggest teachers choose a grade level as some of the subject matter could be for older students. Students can take the role in a court and argue an issue. I tried a sample and it was arguing for or against locker searches in school (students got to choose their side) Good for critical thinking. Many lesson plans about how our democracy works and history including branches of government, voting, and other civic topics.

30 New Media Tools and Web Sites for Writing Teachers. This article is really for adult learners but it offers loads of information and ideas for how best to incorporate technology into your lessons...everything from online learning to screen video capturing programs to online collaboration to web conferencing to video to animation creating tools...and it goes on and on! Worth looking at all the options.

"As companies grow, in the age of the internet, they are drowning in electronic documents. Some people get so many e-mails each day that they don't even bother opening them. Official documents are nice, but they are no way to communicate." This article encourages and promotes the use of videos to communicate and tell stories.

Every teacher should read this

Awesome site for Math tutorials and videos

With a library of over 3,000 videos covering everything from arithmetic to physics, finance, and history and hundreds of skills to practice, we're on a mission to help you learn what you want, when you want, at your own pace.

This is actually a video including ideas from film director George Lucas. The main point of the video is that teaching "communication" in the future should involve much more than just teaching writing but should involve all the ways that students can express their ideas.

A lofty empirical research article intended for doctoral candidates and other researchers but if you can get past the SAT style language the information contained is rather interesting. While my high school students will not be writing formal literary analyses I am interested in them producing high quality papers based on valid research questions/topics and having them think of new ways to view the same literature. Some of the texts we read in class have so many articles and summaries already prepared that it is sometimes hard for students to think of new ways to approach the material and this article offers some interesting thought processes to consider when preparing a literary analysis.

Silver Lake, part of the group that bought a majority stake from EBay Inc. 18 months ago in a transaction valuing Skype at $2.75 billion, put up $900 million in capital, said the person, asking not to be named because the information is private. The firm's 40 percent stake is now worth $3.1 billion, when adjusting for $775 million in debt Skype reported in April.

Author and innovator Milton Chen discusses how communication using mobile tools and web 2.0 technology encourages life long learning and proposes that project- based learning creates student engagement and involvement.