5 Web 2.0 Food for Thought

Technology plays an important role in the education system. There is no way of getting around this integration. When I was going through the K-12 school system technology was being put into the curriculum. I never had a classroom twitter page, social networking sites, or wikis to interact with students. Teachers used Youtube videos to further address a topic we were learning about. I think web 2.0 tools that are helpful are blogs, wikis, twitter accounts for an older class, and Diigo to interact and converse about the topics researched. All of these sites are password protected which means they can fully be controlled and supervised by the teacher to ensure student safety. In order to use these web 2.0 tools, a few peripheral devices will be needed, which include any ports for external devices to be plugged in. While students are completing work on a network with a password, they will have a personal account folder, which serves as a storage space for their work.

I hope to teach second or third graders when I begin my teaching career. I think a fun and creative way to integrate a Web 2.0 tool would be to use Little Bird Tales. This is a digital story making website where kids can upload pictures to each page then record their voice to tell the story on each page. When the story is finished it can be sent to friends and family via email.Web 2.0 App

This would be a great tool to incorporate because it engages the young mind’s creativity while allowing the student to express him or herself. Having the ability to share the students work is a great way to show their families what we’ve been doing. Parents love to hear feedback and see the work of their child. Also, being able to share each students work to the entire classroom would give others ideas on how to make their story better the next time.

Personally, I found the concept map to be tedious and not very helpful. Although children enjoy graphics and designs I think these can be displayed a different way and still be appealing to younger students. The Webspiration application made the concept map easier to navigate through and keep thoughts and topics organized. I learned that there were different templates depending on what kind of topic the presenter was trying to present. This can be used for many different types of study guides and also for collaborative assignments.