Web 2.0: Enhancing Education Through Technology

"This site is for teachers and educators of all grade levels and subject areas. It hosts short tutorial videos on many of the best digital tools to use with students. Its also a growing community of ideas submitted by teachers for classroom use." This should be a great resource!

The article argues that standards can create conditions for creativity and creativity does not equal freedom from all constraints. So what kills creativity?

The author exemplify the activities that can be used in classroom to encourage students' creative thinking.

Found lots of interesting ideas I'll try out during the year. Some ideas are geared towards elementary but I can see many of them working in my secondary classes as well. Especially like the idea of a question chain reading blog in which the teacher posts a question and a student answers the question and posts another question. Each student would need to answer a question and post another and no question can be repeated.

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!

Rick Mereki uses vimeo to produce a video that reminds us just how enriching learning can be. Celebrate life and creativity with vivid images of global learning.

And because of my lifelong interest in creativity, I was thrilled to read the "Creativity and the Joy of Learning" article and reflect a bit on what I've learned and have yet to learn. .... as Jim Groom says "to practice my creativity habit" and to actually learn ... for credit or simply for the joy of learning and creating.

Children are being invited to a Defcon conference in Las Vega, this August 2011, to learn how to become hackers. A major emphasis of the event is the use of hacking skills for positive purposes. The children will be encouraged to put their knowledge to good use and avoid the temptations of becoming a black hat hacker. Apparently the US authorities, intelligence officials and security officers will be attending to keep an eye out for promising hackers who can be hired to help fight cybercrime. How's that for open communication! The Inquirer - Computer hardware news and downloads. Visit the download store today.

Free! Flashcards and study games web site to create your own and share.

"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.

Westside High School has extended learning after the school bell has rung. Teachers and parents encourage creativity and productivity to meet the needs of every student in a 24/7 learning environment. Technology is used to promote educational activities that meet students' unique needs. Communication is supported through podcasts, tweets, ipods, ipads, flip cameras and video technologies. Media literacy is enhanced by tech integration.

Ironies and contradictions within the educational system are highlighted in this presentation by Adam S. Bellow. He has advice to school administrators about the use of digital communication tools in the classroom. He states that "We're doing kids a major disservice if we don't teach them good digital citizenship." He discusses 7 rules that should be allowed in school, but are problems.

As more and more students learn in a virtual classroom, teachers need more facilitation skills that work in an online learning environment. This article provides teachers with some practical online facilitating strategies and how to use many features to keep students engaged in learning.

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

At an educational technology conference in Boston July 27, Harvard University physics professor Eric Mazur explained how he uses "peer instruction" to help his students engage in deeper learning than traditional lectures can provide-and he unveiled a brand-new ed-tech service that can help educators take this concept to a whole new level.

This article by Dennis Pierce discusses events at a July 27 technology conference in Boston. The point of the article is to stress that education needs to move from information giving to student creation. He explains that students need the ability to assimilate the information given so that they can then apply it to another context. Web 2.0 tools have allowed for this "flipped" type classroom that he references, where students read up on a concept for homework, then in the f2f classroom use the higher order thinking skills....application, analysis, creation and publication with the new tools available.

Interesting Infographic showing levels of intimacy in communication.

This post goes into more reasons for blogging in class. The 3 highlighted heare are distributing, discussing, and demonstrating. Each of these activities are done daily in the classroom. When and if Web 2.0 tools are available to assist the teacher and the learners they should be used to their fullest. The blog (web-log) is an easy tool to use in performing these activities.

This article introduced a PBS site that provides idea of daily activity to involve students in reading.

Barseghian listed 28 ways to use Twitter in education.