Success Stories

Curious to hear of success stories from those of you who have started off the new year integrating 2.0 tools in your classrooms. How have your kids responded? What's been the most exciting revelation thus far? What tools have you found to be the most effective from your students' point of view?

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Permalink Reply by JoNelle on September 15, 2007 at 10:15pm

Hi Karen, I am so glad that you asked. Skype and the webcam have to be the tools with the biggest wow factor right now. (If too many others in my district find out, it will probably take up too much bandwidth and.......you know.)

We have communicated with others via Skype and kept track of locations on the map. Through Q & A, students learn from others- not just me. This has been an exciting revelation for me- ANOTHER teacher in the room (who must be very smart since they are on a camera from so far away and they look so big on the SMARTBoard:)).

Webcam (could use any digital camera):my 2nd-3rd grade students dictate a brief summary of the day's lesson. I type it on Word on the SMARTBoard for all to see and edit. Students practice reading it together - with some solo parts. We video it and then email the video clip to their parents. Lots of integrating with these tools:)

JoNelle

PS: I'm looking for a teacher and/or class to Skype at certain times during the school day EST. I have some "reluctant folks" who I would love to show first hand how natural integrating these tools can be. Some people already have so much to read, showing them would be so much more effective. We can keep it brief.

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Permalink Reply by Kelley Irish on November 9, 2007 at 8:52pm

I was transfered to a new building this year and NO ONE was using their computers for anything other than world processing. It has been a wild ride so far introducing not just the students but the teachers as well, to the possibilities of the new on-line brower tools. My lab has become the hub of the school and the students have gotten their parents excited as well. My classroom wiki has been a work in progress and I am pleased to say the students have responded well to product based, media rich lessons. The best part of the web 2.0 tools is how collaboration is integrated into the learning process. Open source software and web 2.o tools have really given new life to technology intergration. Count me in as a believer..or should I say it's all delicious????

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Permalink Reply by Cynthia Graville on November 10, 2007 at 8:07am

I work in informal education, but we do work with our teens full time in the summer and every Sat. during the school year. I've had a lot of luck with Instructables: our kids won a couple awards with their Geodesic Dome instructable and are really excited to create another. We used flickr notes for a colony morphology investigation, and that went well, too. It's taken me about three years, but we finally have blogging well established in all YES components. A lot of our teens used del.icio.us for internet research this summer, and it mad my life a whole lot easier...and was much gentler on our printer's paper! Probably the most exciting revelation for me occurred when our Community Partnerships department merged with the schools department. i began to realize that although less flexible, formal education was an equally exciting (if not more exciting) venue for my passion for collaborative and participatory technologies. I'm starting to get used to the "standards" and "assessment" discussions, and I'm so glad that I found this site! We also just launched a two ning sites, one for our teens and one for a NSF grant that we have.