Web 2.0

Web 2.0 is all about tagging, sharing and interacting. Sites like delicious, Facebook and YouTube exemplify what Web 2.0 is all about. The fun part of all of the exciting developments are incorporating them into you classroom to help engage you students into higher levels of participation.

Just take a look at this YouTube video on what Web 2.0 is all about:

Where are all of the students? They are in the computer lab using a class Wiki!

Web Site Resources:

The Web abounds with great site for lesson resources, just check out any of the following sites:

Teachers First is a great site for teachers lessons plans, the resources are extensive and search able!

FactCheck is a site that promotes critical thinking skills for your students. It offers lesson plans that primarily on statements made by politicians. Students are tasked with checking resources that are provided to check the validity of the statements.

Blogs, Wikis, and RSS:

Blogs and Wikis are great classroom tools for helping students facilitate class discussions, working on collaborative assignments and for expressing ideas and for commenting on those expressed by other students. The possibilities for incorporating them into you classroom are seemingly endless!

So, where does RSS (Really Simple Syndication) fit into any of this? Well, Think of bogs and Wikis as Web based magazine subscriptions, you could go to each site to catch up on what’s going on or you could have updates sent to you vis RSS feeds. These feeds can be used to keep up with all sorts of Web happening simply buy subscribing to them. The be collecting method is to use whats called an aggregators (Pageflakes or iGoogle are two examples). These site work to report all of your subscriptions to you, they are very effective time savers.

Say, how about you take a look at Kathy Schracks Web site, hold on, instead we placed an RSS feed to her site you you could view at your leisure!

To Copy or Not

One of the hardest and perhaps most important lessons a teacher can promote to their students is one of copyright. Although most students seem to have firm beliefs in the concept of fairness, many simply do not see the wrongness in downloading or sharing music files without payment to the creators. Perhaps the first step a teacher must make is one of self example, that is, making sure that they “walk the walk” so to speak. On the face of it, it would appear a simple thing to do yet a world of electronic temptation waits. The copying of and distribution of worksheets from a workbook or downloading of a CD from a “shared” file or playing “pirated” music brought in by a student (which may have been obtained with their parents help) is done with such ease the “wrongness” can be a difficult one to detect. Like many difficult lessons, the message of copyright may indeed start with an introspective look at one’s own practices. Teaching by example is of paramount import when dealing with this oft misunderstood concept.

Resources: http://del.icio.us/schalman/summercoredayfour

Chapter 15 Software Tips: Step by Step

The Summercore Primer providing step by step instructions was of particular interest to me on several levels. The first one being it provides a very good support mechanism for the reader to get involved with a number of software products. On another level, the section provides a sound methodology for presenting any type of software program that is taking a sequential, icon aided, scheme to help users familiarize themselves with new applications. This type of approach could and should be consistently be used by teachers in verbal presentation, note taking and in posted materials. Doing so provides a learner with a consistent schema, one which is a logical and effective way of mastering new applications.