Web 2.0: Enhancing Education Through Technology

This article discusses how students can gain real-world experience by blogging and podcasting.. They are able to hone writing skills, learn to take and give criticism and direction, use software in the production of the blogs and podcasts. They are using the essential skills of managing, analyzing, creating and evaluating, etc.

This article is about using Skype in the classroom for global education. I am categorizing it as media literacy because of the use of skype. Thousands of teachers are involved in a large variety of global educational projects. One of the partners in this program is NASA's Digital Learning center. Projects there are live so that students can learn how to prepare a space vehicle for take off or for them to design something for the spacesuit. There are many other partners to this program.

This blog emphasizes the importance of stressing being a "good citizen" when using the Internet with our students. A week was spent with the following learning objective: "A renewed focus on the choices we make and how they affect us, specifically about balance, responsibility and safety." Each day time was spent on some aspect of this objective. As a culminating activity, students were invited to an assembly where the theme was " Digital Citizenship mean..... to me" Students were able to share what they learned throughout the week.

Michele I had read this article when reviewing them for our assignment. It was great to see all of the topics touched upon, especially about balancing on and off line activities. Love that they stressed being a good digital citizen just as we stress being a good citizen in general. I think we forget to stress some of these points with our students and that they are important in our online life even outside of school. The kids and adults alike.

Great article to support how to go about teaching students how to locate, evaluate, and use information effectively.

I picked this one for Media literacy, but looking at it different. When students have access to media, they look at what we want them to and then wonder off to other items and sites, thus impacting their ability to accurately analyze, evaluate, and create.  

This article brought to light the number of students and parents that have smart phone and use them as their primary source of communication. At the conclusion of the article, it suggested that school districts need to adjust their method of communication with parents due to their overwhelming use of social media and smart phones. This article was focused on the role of social media in communication with parents rather than the use of social media instructionally in the classroom

This article gives a great example of how a librarian created a lesson that uses many web 2.0 tools while students demonstrated their media literacy skills.

By using libguide a Boston Librarian was able to create a lesson for students to learn about an oil spill off the coast of Louisiana. Using libguide allowed her to combine news links, a Delicious linkroll, an RSS feed, and a Google Map that compares the relative size of the spill to Manhattan, Paris, and other global cities.

Education World has put together a resource of educator-specific social media platforms such as WeCollaborate, Teacher Engage, Technology Integration in Education, The EducationWorld Community, that give resources of ideas, blogs and lesson/unit ideas.

The article illustrated the function of web 2.0 in Education Area. The author promoted some free social media sites"http://www.wecollaborate.com" & "http://www.technologyintegrationineducation.com/". They were all designed for the teachers. Please enjoy the article, enjoy the education world community!

Though it is an old article, it continues to be extraordinarily valuable in nowadays. The most important point that the author insisted was that Web 2.0 is not only a tool, it connects everyone in the world in every different aspect. It is a shift, a revolution!

Mind Map for different purposes across the curriculum

This is a topic that creates a similar feel as the value of neat handwriting on paper for students at school. Is it worth debating and reaching a decision about? Or do we just proceed to use paper as the need arises in the classroom? Students are exposed to the use of paper and digital media and resources on different levels. Where do we start saying less or more paper OR digital devices are the way forward?

The article suggests 3 approaches to develop multiple choice questions to assess higher-order thinking skills. Students can be asked to respond to real-world scenarios, analyze visuals such as diagrams and graphs, and synthesize explanations that support the answer. Included are samples of questions that measure these higher-order skills.

Top education iPAD apps organized according to Bloom's Taxonomy and 21st Century Skills.

This article reviewed or introduced some free or mostly free software that could be used for classroom collaborations across the miles. I liked the information on VRoom from Elluminate that is free for three people. Many others were noted such as Skype, UStream, and TalkShoe.

This article is lists and explains resources that can be used to bring classrooms together as mentioned 'Services that bring together distant colleagues or classrooms' listing software such as Skype, Ustream, Elluminate, Talkshoe, SightSpeed, and Vyew.

This article by Sam Somani, explained the new fad at universities call MOOCs- massive open online courses. These courses are free and open to the public, and thousands of students can take each course. The author, being skeptical of MOOCS, decided to try one. He found that not only were students benefiting from the course, the quality of instructional videos was such that it could be used as a tool to ,"to see on a fundamental level how other schools may approach teaching differently and how these schools are able to better reach out to students through their teaching."

This article views a bold move by two Standford professors, ditching lectures and webcam lectures for hands on learning in the classroom. They do rely on technology to flip their classroom. Here is a quote "in an era with a perfect video-delivery platform - one that serves up billions of YouTube views and millions of TED Talks on such things as technology, entertainment, and design - why would anyone waste precious class time on a lecture?,"

Ten Ways Schools Are Using Social Media Effectively

A good suggestion for students to purposefully track and develop their own progress. It holds potential to increase student pride in and accountability for their work. A good alternative to include a wider audience, evaluation and perspective of individual's work.

In this article educational areas surrounding the changing trend of online and traditional teaching are highlighted. Online enthusiasm and concerns, the flipped classroom, the value of online courses and prioritizing teaching students on campus could be issues all educators will have to debate at the rapid pace online teaching are accelerating.

A simple video to demonstrate communication, communication, collaboration, critical-thinking and creativity.