Web 2.0 Tools for Teachers

During the last week of July I participated in what might be the best professional development experience that I have ever had. I took a class on Web 2.0 Tools for Teachers taught by Alice Barr, an Integrator at Yarmouth HS in Maine. Being an integrator myself, I was excited to have the TIME to really dive into the free web-based tools that I had heard about and played with a little on my own. The class was fantastic, an incredible model in teacher as "facilitator"-Alice asked us to work at our own pace, on our own project, based on our own interests. Possibly the best feature of the class is the wiki: http://usmsummer2007.wikispaces.com/
which outlines each of the web 2.0 tools and has fantastic resources laid out in an easy to follow-teach yourself format. I learned so much from Alice and from the others in the class. It is a relief to know that the wiki will continue to grow (Alice is going to leave it up!) as people learn and add to it. Check out my project for the class: http://scheney.edublogs.org/
I've used a blog for about a year now but for the class, I added links to my del.icio.us acct (newly set up), bloglines acct (newly set up), and twitter (which I'm still trying to get used to). Would love some feedback. What web 2.0 tools are you using as part of your teaching practice? ~Stephanie

Tags: alicebarr, blog, education, readwriteweb, scheney, tools, web2.0, wiki

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Permalink Reply by Andrew Pass on August 8, 2007 at 4:19pm

Sounds like an incredible seminar. I'm always amazed at how many new Web 2.0 tools come out on a regular basis. I have found TechCrunch to be a phenomenal resource on up and coming resources. (OK, so it's not good to use the same word twice in the same sentence, particularly if they refer to different things.)

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Permalink Reply by Edwin Wargo on August 8, 2007 at 4:58pm

Stephanie -This does sounds like an amazing seminar. The wiki is really a great resource. If there's one reason to have a longer school year, it's to explore all of the really super cool web 2.0 tools out there. Thanks for sharing. Edwin

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Permalink Reply by Aseem Badshah on August 8, 2007 at 8:43pm

Hi Stephanie,

It's great to hear that seminars like this are starting to take place. I am interested to hear a bit more about how you came to hear about the seminar and why you went. Did you hear about the seminar through your school/district or did you find out about it on your own? Did your school/district give you any incentive to go or was it completely voluntary? Did any other teachers from your school attend? I am just trying to get a sense of how active administration is becoming in sending teachers to Web 2.0 seminars :)

I also wanted to share another Web 2.0 tool that teachers may find valuable (hopefully Steve doesnt take this down as a commercial solicitation.) Teachers can use Scriptovia.com to view real student schoolwork from around the world. This can be used to practice grading, to create fair assesment rubrics using real work, to get ideas for lesson plans/prompts, and to give your students examples of good work.

Disclaimer: I am the founder of Scriptovia.com and I am not a teacher, but rather a student at the University of Washington.

-Aseem

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Permalink Reply by Colette Cassinelli on August 8, 2007 at 9:50pm

I posted my favorite tools and reasons why on my website at http://edtechvision.org/?p=20

1. Google products: Gmail, Google docs, iGoogle, Google reader, Google Earth, Sketchup
2. Del.icio.us
3. Flickr
4. Bloglines
5. Audacity
6. Wikispaces
7. Skype
8. Flock and Firefox
9. Moodle
10. YouTube

FREE is a very good thing!

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on August 9, 2007 at 5:41pm

I always wonder how long some of these great tools will be available and free. I remember the days when the exhibit hall at NECC was filled with great free sites: Blackboard, Riverdeep, eboard, epals, noodletools, Rosetta Stone, etc. Hmmm.

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Permalink Reply by Stephanie Cheney on August 9, 2007 at 5:25pm

Aseem,
I learned about this course (offered through the University of Southern Maine) from the instructor who is my friend. It was a one week M-F course from 8-3 and I earned 3 grad credits for it. My school pays for the equivalent of 1 grad class each year so they endorsed it but not necessarily because of the topic. I went because I was interested in the topic and knowing the instructor, I knew that it would be fun and very informational and I wasn't disappointed! I was the only teacher from my school taking the course but there were 21 teachers from a wide range of subject areas, grade levels and technology comfort levels--all from southern Maine. Because Maine, statewide, is involved in a 1-1 laptop project at the middle school level, the local universities are offering more courses on technology topics than others in New England. Check out the USM website at: http://www.usm.maine.edu/cehd/pdc/index.htm

Your site looks interesting, I'm going to spend some more time investigating it.
Best of luck,
Stephanie.

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Permalink Reply by Barbara Wright on August 9, 2007 at 8:37pm

Stephanie,
I'm in library school, and like you, this summer I'm taking a fantastic class on "social software literacy". We blogged, twittered, edited a wiki,
created podcasts, videos, and just about everything else you mentioned here, but with the focus on use in libraries. Since so many of will be going into school media centers, we also discussed web2.0 tools in education. I haven't used them in my job yet, but I am creating a private Ning for the teachers of our district to share their ideas. It was a wonderful experience. There's so much to learn!

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Permalink Reply by Jesse Thorstad on August 27, 2007 at 10:06am

zoho.com - especially their database app (called "Creator")
teachertube.com - YouTube for teachers!
del.icio.us - very cool! Thinking about putting the del.icio.us Firefox plug-in in a lab, pointing them all to the same account, and using it to let teachers make quick links to resources for all students in that lab.

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Permalink Reply by Anne Mirtschin on August 28, 2007 at 3:03pm

Can I please ask what is Tumbir and how do you use it? I checked it out but it looked more like a blogging program or is it a search engine of some kind. I am always looking out for more web 2.0 applications. And thanks in advance

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Permalink Reply by Anne Mirtschin on August 28, 2007 at 3:39am

Thanks for sharing this. I found the following really good web 2.0 tools
www.websurveymonkey.com - great tool for creating surveys
www.famundo.com - an online calendar
google docs
google page creator - web page creator
www.irfanview.com - great free digital image editing
http://www.toondoo.com/./Home.do - cartoon creator
www.del.icio.us
www.wikispaces.com
www.wordpress.com for blogging
mojiti - online digital video editing
www.bubbl.us for brainstorming
Of possible interest
http://www.circleup.com/my/cu/home - class feedback
http://www.tutorom.com/ - online tutorials
Anne

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Permalink Reply by Karen Richardson on August 28, 2007 at 1:02pm

My all-time favorite Web 2.0 tool is called LibraryThing. It makes it easy to create an online card catalog of books. It uses tags to categorize and is a wonderful way to find new books to read. While I am not in the classroom right now, I wish I had had this when I did teach middle school language arts because I ran a reading workshop and it would have been great support for me and the kids.

PS You can look at my catalog here: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/witchyrichy