"We have created this wiki to house all of our collective works in 21st Century Teaching and Learning (Classrooms for the Future). This is for your reference and your use."
or much of the world, it's that special time of the year when students head back to school. The good news for students is that even though that means waking up early and doing homework, there are a number of web-based and social tools to help you get through the school year. From staying organized to improving study habits to making sure you reference your research sources properly, the web can help you be a better student.
The internet, we all know, is notoriously unreliable. It is also the premier source of information in both the developed and the developing world. This makes the question of credibility of web based information very important. As students, we constantly refer to the internet for information.
But can we trust what we read on the net ? Are online searches trustworthy?
We the Credibles, try to bring up this extremely complicated issue in a simple yet interesting and comprehensive manner. We trust that after going through our materials, readers will be able to make better choices about what to trust and what not to trust on the internet.
In this day of high-stakes testing and frequent complaints from teachers that they "don't have time to use technology" in the classroom, this wiki seeks to bridge the gap to help teachers see that technology doesn't have to be an add-on that distracts them from focusing on the curriculum. Rather than accepting an either/or mentality, we can begin to connect technology to the accepted "best practices" that our districts expect to see in our classrooms.
Readers and contributors will learn and share information about specific Web 2.0 tools that can be used by teachers, and strategies that can be used with those tools that align with and support research-based effective instructional methods. Reference will be made to specific instructional strategies and a variety of examples will be shared covering all content areas from K-12 to college/university levels.
This wiki is an information resource as well as an interactive space where readers can add their own insights and strategies.
Novelinks includes online as well as printed references to biographical, historical and critical insights on authors and their works. We also offer reading strategies and units for specific novels under the heading reading resources.
VisualWikipedia is a visual, intuitive, and interactive web interface to encyclopedic knowledge/information. It is designed to provide a fun place to learn stuff in an efficient manner. Please watch the following video to get a good sense of how to use it.
Let's face it, it's the 21st century and textbooks are annoying. They're heavy, expensive, and it can take forever to find what you're looking for. For the student in a hurry, online research is the fastest and easiest way to fill up that research paper. Here are 5 of the most useful (and fun) subject-oriented online research Web sites.
If I were forced to choose an aspect of the internet that made it simply indispensable, it would definitely be its availability as a huge learning resource. 20 years ago, who would have thought that one would have easy access to already completed business documents, research papers of world class universities, free encyclopedias and some great books, no matter where he or she is located in the world.
What would your classroom be like without your students cracking open their oversized textbooks everyday? Probably a lot more interesting, especially for the kiddies. There are so many other resources out there for teachers to use, online and off, that teaching without textbooks is becoming more and more acceptable. If you don't believe us, scroll down this list of over 100 different resources - including websites, iPod lectures and field trips - that will encourage you to toss out your textbooks.
The Newseum - a 250,000-square-foot museum of news - offers visitors an experience that blends five centuries of news history with up-to-the-second technology and hands-on exhibits.