Web+2.0

*Web 2.0 was all about learning about the many different ways the internet can help create a more interesting class room through various (and by various, I mean many, many, many!) tools that come right from the internet! No needing to buy software and download it--it is available to everyone! I found the Web 2.0 tools to be quite impressive and up-to-date on the kind of technology that schools are using these days. I also liked that many of the tools could be accessed by more than one person using different computers. When it comes to the future, I believe these type of educational internet tools will make group projects a lot more convenient and easier, give more time to the classroom for discussions so that the students are becoming more interactive with their peers as well as feeling comfortable with people who may differ from themselves, and lastly, make presentations easier for both the teacher and students because with the internet, you do not have to revisit the same computer to finish something--you can do it anywhere!

= Web 2.0 = Web 2.0 makes it a simple task when it comes to keeping the student’s in the classroom connected. With all the different Web 2.0 mechanisms out there, student’s can now not only get a hold of their teacher at any point-in-time for questions, thoughts, or concerns, but also keep in touch with classmates—this makes classroom unity stronger as well as makes it a learning experience for all the students because if they do not need to rely on the teacher for all their answers, they are making their fellow classmate’s think, discuss, and come to a final conclusion all on their own! From the sounds of it, I am betting you can see what I think of Web 2.0 in education: I approve. Now, on to the assignment: Five Web 2.0 tools from http://cooltoolsforschools.wikispaces.com/%20that I can incorporate into the classroom.

 “ Create presentations in a few clicks, wherever you are.Work with your team in the same presentation **at the same time**.Your presentations can be private or public. And each one has its own web address.Download your presentations and show them even without an Internet connection.The presentations are web pages (HTML) so you could even edit them manually” (www.cooltoolforschools.wikispaces.com). The website states that, when using PreZentit, a person can create a presentation fast and quick while working with a team of people (if that is the case) all at the same time to get it done! This would work perfectly in a classroom setting. If there were multiple books that the students could pick from to read, groups of students could work on one, large, book report using this tool as a medium. This way each student could add to the larger picture on their own time and at their own pace without having to scurry around and find a place to meet up with the other team members which makes group work outside the classroom more manageable and less of a hassle!
 * 1) PreZentit

 “ Type text (post note) and get a link for it**,** can be password protected, send the link (email, twitter) to the recipient**.** As soon as the recipient reads it, the note will be destructed**.** You can attach a file to your note. It will be automatically deleted after the first downloading” (www.cooltoolforschools.wikispaces.com). Though this may not be used in quite the same regards as the PreZentit, it still has a place in the classroom: a more emotionally regarded one. A lot of students—while growing up and trying to figure out who they are—feel like they are alone and have no one to go to (even if they do have a group of friends); this tool could make it so that a student feels comfortable to reach out to a teacher if help is needed. Since the message will go away after its first downloading, the student does not have to feel that the teacher can use hard evidence against them (if the teacher had incentive to go to someone else, I guess). This could make communication with a respected and trusted teacher more open to his/her students. Since it is a teacher’s job to look after those in his/her classroom, this would just make it that much simpler to know what is really going down—not just what the teacher thinks is going down.
 * 1) Self-Destructible Text Notes

 “ Search and compare multiple engines in one place.It is a search visualization that enables you to compare, remix and share results from the best web, image, video, blog, tagging, news engines, Flickr images or blog RSS feeds. You can embed as a widget on your site and blog” ( www.cooltoolforschools.wikispaces.com ). This research tool can make the time it takes to find credible sources a lot quicker meaning that the student will have more time to compile educationally sound data and work longer on a subject’s paper that is assigned to him/her. It is also a good way to let the student take responsibility for letting other people know what sites are worthy of searching and which are not. This would be one of the tools I would add in a syllabus for the students to have as a helpful resource.
 * 1) SearchCrystal

“ Make paperback storybooks and professionally typed, hardback classbooks. Make free books from every student's story. Make a free book for the classroom where every student is an author and illustrator of a page in a classbook” ( www.cooltoolforschools.wikispaces.com ). StudentPublishing would be a wonderful means of collaborating everyone’s work in a class such as Creative Writing. This type of tool would make it cheaper and easier to create an anthology of works by students, as well as one that the students could share with countless other people—anywhere, anytime! This type of activity would also be a good one to finish the year with because it would bring everyone together, as a collective group, to work on something that each person in the classroom is proud of and excited about. As for a regular English class, this could also be used as a means of making a portfolio of all the writing a student did the whole semester. Again, this would be more of an end-of-year activity, but still one that would bring in creative aspects to the classroom.
 * 1) StudentPublishing

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'courier new',courier,monospace; text-align: center;">“ Create custom quizzes that can be taken online. Manage your quizzes and monitor your students' scores. Fill in the blank, multiple choice, true or false, multi-marked or matching questions” ( www.cooltoolforschools.wikispaces.com ). <span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">Creating quizzes on-line could free up class time to have a more interactive class period rather than one that is wasting half its precious class time with a little, old, quiz. Sure, tests would still be due in class, but quizzes that the students could do on their own time (maybe after they actually got finished reading the book assigned but just were not up to par with the syllabus) and in a more comfortable environment for them that creates less stress that results would be better. Though results could be tampered with, I think that in an English class, most questions are a little hard to cheat with—especially if they are short answer. It could also make for nice pop quizzes if the students are made to look on a class website everyday to see if there is homework and up POPS a quiz (now there is the literal meaning of those two words ha). Also, since a person can make their own quizzes, it could also be used as another means of a study guide if students were made to make their own quizzes for the other classmates to take!
 * 1) <span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">eQuizzer