Web 2.0 Tools in the Classroom

Here is a presentation I put together for a workshop I did this week for teachers in my district on Web 2.0 tools in the classroom.

The slideshow has clickable links to the various tools I discussed.

Enjoy!

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What if....

Here is a quote from an interview with Harvard's Harvey Cox on the NPR show, Speaking of Faith.

I have a hunch that congregational life is going to move in a more conversational direction — study groups and, I might say, a less kind of pulpit-centered audience format into a way in which people can sort through their concerns and their doubts and their aspirations for other people. Periodically, any religious tradition does have to go through this kind of waiting, this period of expectation and openness and hope for new, new ways of expressing faith.

Now, imagine that the works congregational and pulpit and religious are replaced by education terms. It might read like this:

I have a hunch that school life is going to move in a more conversational direction — study groups and, I might say, a less kind of teacher-centered audience format into a way in which people can sort through their concerns and their doubts and their aspirations for other people. Periodically, any educational tradition does have to go through this kind of waiting, this period of expectation and openness and hope for new, new ways of expressing reform.

Inventing New Boundaries

I just finished watching the Pre-Conference Keynote for the K-12 Online Conference. The presentation was called "Inventing New Boundaries" and was "assembled" by David Warlick.

What can I say? Here is one quote that just knocked me out (I am sure they are not entirely perfect):

These digital natives have invisible tenatacles that connect them to the rest of the world. The problem is, when they enter our classrooms, we chop them off because we want them to be the students we want to teach rather than teaching who they are. And this is an insult to our children.

I am wanting to shout about this from the rooftops -- which would probably be more effective than posting it here, since I have maybe 1 reader as far as I know.

I have been trying to share what David talks about in this presentation with other colleagues and teachers and students for the past year or so. I no longer feel so alone.

A Powerful Video

Thanks to a fellow teacher, I was able to watch (and be moved by) this video. It is called "Education 2.0." Here is what the author says:

Education used to be about transfer of information from teacher to student. Now there is too much information available in the world. Much of this information is being used by people trying to sell us something: an idea, a product, a political agenda, a way of seeing our entire country.

New Hampton School's Junior Urban Adventure attempts to turn around this notion of one-way education in the same way that Web 2.0 is changing the way we think about the web. Students will learn to ask questions, make meaning from the glut of information available to them and engage, upload and maybe even start to solve some of the world's problems.

One Teacher's Digital World

Thanks to this article from Education Week's Digital Directions, which is an introduction to the use of wikis by teachers, I found this class/teacher wiki. Ms. D., the teacher, has used the wiki has a bit of a mission statement:

The learning community in Mrs. D's classroom will use this collaborative space to connect with each other and create the tools we will use to construct our understanding of the forces that have worked throughout history to shape our world.

There are links to Ms. D.'s class blog (powered by Class Blogmeister) and her class podcast, where students are producing podcasts that supplement their study of World War II.

This teacher and these students are really living that mission statement.

Very inspiring!

An Amazing Class Blog

I just came across this class blog for an AP Biology class.

This (brilliant) teacher has invented a role for the students. They are sherpas, and their jobs (like the actual sherpas in the Himalayas) is to be a guide to the other students and to generally contribute to the learning in the class.

What will the sherpa do here?

1. Summarize the day's lesson.
2. Highlight the important points of the lesson -- especially highlighting concepts exemplifying the 8 themes of biology (more about these later).
3. Highlight any unanswered questions left after the class.
4. Help clarify any points of confusion left after class.
5. Point us to resources that help learn today's lesson -- like animations, videos, diagrams, photos, other teacher's Web sites that illustrate concepts we've been learning. AP Biology (Period 1&2) 2007-08: Welcome to Our Virtual Classroom:

And, the teacher's introduction:

Let me make that clear -- this isn't MY blog; this is OUR blog. This blog is what you'll make of it.

I find this so inspiring, in terms of using the blog as a tool to let students be contributing members of the class in an ongoing conversation.

So, what happens next?

This eSchool News online article reports on a pending breakthrough in extremely low cost computing.

... small, California-based company NComputing, predicts that by 2009 many schools will be able to provide their students with portable, online capabilities for as little as $100 each--and perhaps as little as $30 or $40 per user for non-mobile devices. Wireless capacity, says Dukker, should be a relatively inexpensive bonus by then.

The article goes on to talk about schools in Macedonia:

Macedonia's Ministry of Education and Science selected NComputing over four other bidders and will use the company's "multi-user virtual desktop software," along with inexpensive terminals, to provide computing for some 400,000 students, most of whom attend school in half-day sessions.

It makes my head spin thinking about a country full of students ALL having access to Web 2.0 tools. The burning question is this: What happens when these (and any) students are fully empowered to have their own voices? What does education look like then?