Web 2.0: Enhancing Education Through Technology

In this article, Larry Ferlazzo discusses the need to keep students motivated - even at the end of a school year - and the ways in which to do so. The article also mentions ways in which to keep teacher energy at its best. At least for me, this article is very timely (7 student days remaining). I think it's also very important for communication. If we forget our purpose in teaching (even in the last few days of school), we can also forget about motivation from our students. All of these things truly work hand in hand.

This is an interesting idea on how to use facebook as an educational tool instead of the social media giant it has become. My school just went to a 1:1 laptop school and there has been talk of baning facebook. This article makes quite the arguement for an educational use of this social media.

Awesome idea for a collaborative group project! I'd like to see the comments that students might make for each date. Could there be a single prompt...or perhaps 13 prompts? Nice work...really inspiring.

Describes how a teacher with little technology experience used an interactive White Board to communicate and inspire her science class in a new way.

Online lessons reach remote village in India via Skype. Lessons on numbers and the concept of infinity are made accessible via this free communication tool.

This article looks at what teachers should be doing in the classroom based on what students think, not just the teachers.

An interesting article about using SMART boards for teaching fractions. The popular methods of teaching fractions are using physical objects and graphics. The SMART board is both in that the kids can move the images around to better understand fractions.

Matrix for creating a question and answer game. Get your students talking about what is probably the most famous "review game" out there.

This article explains how technology has introduced tools that can facilitate communication with learning disabled children.

A study showing how social networking is contributing to cheating.

There is so much information available now to people that plagiarism is easier and more tempting.

"Plagiarism is cheating, it is dishonest, and it is unethical." The first way to avoid students from plagiarizing is to set clear expectations in a written format that provides concrete examples. There are programs such as Glatt Plagarism Services that can be used to detect plagerism. By giving students a good background on the importance of citing ideas, topics, and quotes and providing them with how to cite correctly, they will be less tempted to plagiarize. As educators we can take many steps to provide support for our students so that they do not plagiarize.

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.

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.

This will keep you up to date with international technology requirements and recommendations for technology standards.

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.

Many students shut down when they see red pen corrections. Here are a few ways to give effective feedback to students.

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.

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.

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.

Fun and educational technology to fill in when you have 5 minutes.