web2tools

The Web 2.0 tools listed on this page were used in the creation of this project. They are listed in order of use. I am also preparing a teacher plan book that will show how to organize the use of these tools as part of a capstone project within a classroom. The plan book is general enough that it can used in any class. Please see our course docs page for teach planning note and rubrics for each stage of this project. If you are interested in learning how to use these tools in your classroom, check out [|CommonCraft] or the [|Web 2.0 Workshop] videos on Atomic Learning.


 * Ning - http://www.ning.com || We we want to create a social networking space on Ning so that other schools can join and participate with us on this project. We hope to build an online community of students and experts who want to contribute to the body of knowledge related to this subject. This is a great site for building an online community in a school and then extending that computer to community members or experts in the field. ||
 * Google News - http://news.google.com || Students used this Web 2.0 technology use monitor article on their research topic. This tool was especially powerful in allowing students to limit their news searches to only those papers where were being published in the country that a particular student group was monitoring. ||
 * Twitter - http://www.twitter.com || Students used this technology to keep everyone in the group apprised about what they were reading, researching, or producing in relation to their research topic. I frequently use Twitter to follow my students, have them make daily entries on their research progress and comment on other group members activities. ||
 * Wikipedia - http://www.wikipedia.org/ || Students are using this site as a first stop when they want to learn about a new subject. I capitalized on this trend and had students use it to gain a basic understanding of their research topic. After a few weeks of using RSS feeds to monitor articles, watching video podcasts, and reading their assigned books, I had them evaluate the pages in Wikipedia on their topic, make suggestions for improvement and add to the post. ||
 * Google Docs & Spreadsheets - http://docs.google.com/ || We used a similar function in First Class, called Our Documents to create an area where students could take notes on their books, news articles they were reading, and the podcasts they were watching. If we get other schools to participate in this project, we will use Google Docs and Spreadsheets to share our notes. These tools are a great way to teach students to collaborate on note taking, outlining, writing, and editing collaborative documents. ||
 * Netvibes - http://www.netvibes.com || Each student involved in the project used this software to create a Start Page. I had student create a page on their home town and insert widgets on weather and feeds on news about their town to get them used to using the software on a daily basis. After a couple of weeks I had students create a page on their research topic and incorporate feeds from news papers, periodicals and web sites they deal with their research topic. ||
 * Google Blog Search - http://blogsearch.google.com/ || We used this search engine in class, after students created their own blog in our Ning group and posted a couple of entries. Students searched for expert blogs on the issues they were researching, created feeds for these blogs and incorporated them into their start pages in Netvibes. ||
 * Flickr - http://www.flickr.com || We used this photo sharing site to look for photos on their research topics. Netvibes also lets you create a photo feed on a particular issues. Students displayed these feeds on their research page. ||
 * C-Map - http://cmap.ihmc.us/ || C-Map is a free concept mapping tool. I have been experimenting with this tool and will use it next year to have student build a large concept map marginalized children. I am currently looking of ways to share and embed our concept map into our project wiki. I'm thinking about using Google Earth to concept map issues, which would allow us to geographically code factors that contribute to the marginalization of children. You could use placemarks as nodes and the path tool to draw line connecting the nodes. ||
 * Elluminate - http://elluminate.com/ || This is a great tool for having online meetings with area experts or other teachers. We had one guest speaker for this project, but did not record the meeting. Next year we will look at using this software to record any expert visitors and to have online meetings with other teachers and students who want to participate in the project. ||
 * Delicious - http://www.delicious.com || We used this social bookmarking site to create a resource list for this project. You can see our list on the home page. ||
 * Movie Maker 2 - http://moviemaker2.com/ || Students used this tool to create some of the videos on this site. Next year I am planning on making it a requirement that each students group create a video. You can find a video rubric and links to sites that give video tips and tricks on our course docs page. ||
 * Google Earth Pro - http://earth.google.com/earth_pro.html || Students used this tool to create a layer in Google Earth. Next year we plan on improving the layer by geocoding the podcasts, videos and news articles we find. In 2007, I arranged for the [|Walker School] to be a beta tester for Google Earth Pro. You can find a rubric for our layer on our course docs page. If you are interested in participating with us on this project, I can arrange for you school to get free copies of the Google Earth Pro software. ||
 * Wikispaces - http://www.wikispaces.com || We used a wiki for a final project in stead of building pages in Dreamweaver. I have taught a course on web design for 5 years, but the problem was that the pages were static. A wiki is a great way to introduce basic HTML concepts. I hope to add a web design course that will concentrate on CSS and XHTML concepts that student can take after our [|Internet Technology] course. ||