Web 2.0: Enhancing Education Through Technology

A great resource for sites to use when writing literary criticism. Memorial Hall Library is located in Andover, MA and this particular article divides the information into the following categories: Plot Summaries, Criticism, Authors, Contemporary Authors, Reader's Advisory, Literary Awards List, and What do I Read Next? Easy to use and some new sites I did not know about.

this presents an opinion on Instructors commenting on students discussions. Many observations. The author statesher best advice is "" to be a presence in each discussion room and... what was most important was not the quantity of the interactions with students but the quality of those interactions." The author found if she did not comment students were disappointed and lost interest in the discussion so the teacher is the cheerleader to highlight important things and clarifiy any confusions.

This article looks at how students can use data bases to process the information they are gathering online while doing research. It is an excellent article promoting ideas to move away from multi-tasking and stealing ideas form the net.

In this article, a school is implementing Ipad use in classrooms to encourage students to go beyond the box for education. The article mentions the need for a global learning environment and articulates that this move is allowing students to be more team oriented, less distracted, and think more critically in their learning.

Although you have to subscribe to read the entire article, the beginning of this had a few good points on how to categorize different crises in a school's crisis plan of action.

This article is a review for animation software for the grade school level. While this article is not about HOTS directly it describes an interesting tool that can promote HOTS. Students are well versed in making PowerPoints these days and moving to a more extensive animation platform is the next logical step. The animation process involves HOTS because students must process the information into a format that is more then just memorization and repetition. This tool would promote the skills of analysis, synthesizing, and critical thinking as students take information presented in class and work to share their knowledge through film/animation.

Mass. elected officers

I use this video to show students why the government must create laws to keep our workforce safe.

From ways to find the best youtube videos for the classroom to tricks to make youtube videos more appropriate to use in the classroom.

A discussion on the use of Web 2.0 tools (mobile devices!) and the need to update acceptable use polices.

This site discusses the pros and cons of three major Web 2.0 media tools- Twitter, Facebook and the newest of the three, Google+.

The growth in K-12 electronic learning in the United States will continue in the double digits at least through 2015, according to a revised e-learning forecast released this week.

Barseghian listed 28 ways to use Twitter in education.

This article lists the Web sites that are the most popular sources for student-matched content.

Struggling students need inspiration to write creatively. This article highlights the Amazing Story Starter. It can be used as a class resource on a SmartBoard or individually. Awesome creativity tool!

Comic Master http://www.comicmaster.org.uk/ lets users create their own graphic novels!

Collab-o-Write is a social media tool that lets students create or contribute to a story that is written by a number of different users.  http://library.thinkquest.org/2626 

This site offers a tutorial/class on information literacy. This can be used with your students and the site states that it will take 2-9 hours to complete. It has a self-assessment at the beginning to test your knowledge.

This is a new solution (beta testing starts today) to help users improve information literacy. It is designed to give users a simplified and smart process for locating, anayzying and utilizing the right information. In addition it will increase dialogue between librarians, students and faculty - further engaging each in the process.