Teaching, and Learning with Web 2.0

If you blog, use a wiki, Facebook, Thinkature, Zoho, Delicious, Podcasts, Digital Stories, RSS feeds, or any tools like those listed to the left in your teaching, you are part of the Web 2.0 Learning Community. These tools are not a fad and they won't go away. They are being used by teachers, students and businesses every day. The list of Web 2.0 tools continues to grow. I look at this list and I get scared. How can I possibly keep up? I can't. What I can do, though, is pick a few tools and really try to see how they could be and are being used in the classroom. I can choose to be a mover and a shaker by using Web 2.0 tools with my students or I can choose to be moved and shaken by them.

Wikipaedia defines Web 2.0 as an idea in the head rather than a new form of the internet. Regardless of the definition, it cannot be denied that these tools share one common feature; the ability to share information. 21st Century learning is all about collaboration and the skills necessary for functioning in a 21st Century world can be taught using Web 2.0 tools.

George Benard Shaw said, "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself." I hope you continue to be unreasonable.

Please try to carve out some time over winter break to really learn how to use your blog. The Award Winning Blogs noted on the left and the Fremd Classroom blogs listed below are great places to get you started.

Exemplary Blog Sites

The list to the left, Award Winning Blogs, provides links to the best blogs out there...at least in the opinions of those who voted for them! The Edublogs site provides very useful education examples. In fact, the finalists have just been announced. I'm impressed.

By the way, don't be afraid to check out other blogging sites. Like Blogger, you can get an Edublog in seconds. The nice thing about Edublogs is that it has a tie to the Education community straight away. For example, on the front page of the site is a link to 10 Ways To Use Your Edublog to Teach.

Below is a list of other blog providers you might want to evaluate. Just so you know, some of these may be websensed at school because of social networking...

Blog Hosts
Edublogs
Dairyland
TypePad

Server Side (Blogs that require a download and installation)
Greymatter
Moveable Type
WordPress

How do you add a picture to your Blog homepage?

How can I get a photograph on my blog homepage. It is asking for a URL address, is there an easy picture upload feature?

Blogging Basics!

Our TechFeast for today will be for you to create your own blog! Please come back to this page for some quick links to some thoughtful commentary on blogs.

Good Reads

Blogging Ballet

Beginning Blogging by David Jakes
http://newtools.pbwiki.com/Blogs

Teaching Today Article
http://teachingtoday.glencoe.com/howtoarticles/blog-basics

Blogging in Education-A huge resource compiled by David Warlick
http://davidwarlick.com/wiki/pmwiki.php?n=Main.BloggingInEducation

Examples of Classroom Blogs
AP Calculus AB
AP Calculus AB 2007-2008 Scribe Notes
Arty Reflections
Math 306

Fremd Classroom Blogs
(Join the Community of Fremd Bloggers! Send Mike B. the URL of your blog and it will be listed here!)
F.A.S.T (Jaclyn DeRose)
E319 (Sabra Gerber)
AP Government (Amanda Schmidt)
Miller Management (Tony Miller)
US History (Mary Brotsos)
Art Class (Jerry Cargill)
Photography Class (Jerry Cargill)
English 101 Update (Nicole LaBeau)