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.