One-Hour Workshop on Web 2.0 for the Classroom and Virtual School

I need to have my head examined. I got so excited over the Web 2.0 tools we discussed in class and the few more that I stumbled on that I volunteered to conduct a one-hour workshop at my school in two weeks. We just had a week-long virtual school after the terrorist attack on Marriott hotel, and the teachers were wondering if there were other ways to make virtual school more interactive and interesting, especially for elementary students.

So I prepared a list, went through it with our secondary school principal and elementary computer teacher. This list is not final. My first challenge is how to fit this workshop within the 50-minute time frame, as the last 10 minutes is for Q&A. At least I got the workshop coordinator to agree that we'll have two separate sessions, so I can give examples for middle and high school teachers, while my co-presenter -- the elementary computer teacher -- will focus on the use of these tools for the elementary. We just had Smartboards installed in almost every classroom this school year, so that is another basis for the list. And I've pared it down to 5 tools or categories, so I can spend 10 minutes explaining and showing examples of use for teaching and learning.

Name of workshop: Web 2.0 Tools for the Classroom and Virtual School

1. iGoogle Widgets - + Google Reader, Google Talk, Dictionary, To Do List, etc.
2. Diigo and Webslides - sharing bookmarks with annotations, stickies, and comments; and converting to a slideshow
3. Voicethread - Group conversations around images, docs, and video
4. Online Tutorials and Digital Storytelling - Tikatok, Panraven, Comiqs, Slideshare, TeacherTube
5. FlashCardFriends

Obviously there's more, so I would also include in our handout relevant sites and tools like Tag Clouds, Quintura, Ning in Education and Classroom 2.0 for teachers who wish to learn more on their own time. Let us know if you'd like to recommend more. We appreciate your inputs.

Tags: classroom, education, online, tools, web2.0, workshop

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Comment by Casey on October 24, 2008 at 3:54am: Wow...you must be living the same life I am! I also have offered the same workshop/presentation and need the head exam as well. I think what teachers will want is something they can walk away with and use the next day. I think your list is a good one. I am assuming all these services are not blocked by your school? We had a presenter come in from OUTSIDE and she was mortified when nearly her entire "how to" tools on the SMARTBoard were blocked! Ugh! Here are some other sites to check out (in your spare time of course!): ICue.com and ePals.com. I have been impressed with them so far. Good luck!

Comment by Antoinette Go on October 24, 2008 at 4:14am: Ohmigod, thank you so much! I visited iCue and it looks like something our AP teachers and students will love. The Game Challenges could be a good ice breaker using a Smartboard and involving the class. A few competitive students may even like the idea of seeing themselves among the top scorers. I'll definitely add this and e-Pals to my list of recommended tools.
My principal told me the same thing: choose tools that teachers can use in their class right away
I'm on leave so I have no idea what's blocked this year. But it's for a professional development day for teachers so I can coordinate with the tech guys to make sure these websites will work that day.
If you don't mind sharing notes I would like to invite you to Diigo, where I bookmarked these tools

Comment by aledoux on October 24, 2008 at 8:56am: I enjoy reading your suggestions on this topic. I am also in the same boat, by that I mean, searching for web2 tools that teachers can use in the classroom, and like Casey stated in her comment, getting blocked/firewalled from an educational site is very discouraging.. Therefore I am constantly searching for other tools that I can pass on to our teachers. I am currently developing a wiki simply to discuss web 2 tools with early years teachers, finding out what the teachers know, what they would like to find out more about and/or would like to try first... and of course share resources.