Web+2.0

Web2.0 ﻿   Web 2,0 is technically not just one tool, but a collection of different, visual, adudio, and other technology tools that can be used to extend understanding and learning process. The fallowing paper explains its importance. Tarayn Marissa Svalberg September 28, 2010 Web 2.0

Web 2.0 is an amazing, yet complex tool. I believe it can be very helpful as a tool in the classroom. At the same time, teachers must take into account they should utilize the tools to aide in their teaching, but not solely rely on the tools to teach a class. The benefits of Web 2.0 tools include increased understanding, accessibility, attention, and more. I believe using different sites and tools to engage the students is a very helpful tool. In a world full of technology, where books, maps, writing, and entertainment is frequently accessed via internet or electronically, teaching should not be thwarted, but enhanced using the often complicated, but useful technology out there. Not only is technology “hip”, but it is often more easy and quick to access, as well as show things that can not merely be shown in a classroom with a chalk board or through the words of texts. Web 2.0 is highly beneficially and there are many ways to use Web 2.0. RSS Feeds are a stupendous way to keep updated. As a worker at Best Buy we use a form of an RSS feed at each store to keep updated in specific prices and inventory in that particular location. RSS could highly benefit students with an organized format and updated information on a regular basis. This could highly effect students into journalism or students that are just interested in current events. As a teacher RSS would be an accurate way to relay information to students in a timely, summarized manner and connect lessons to relevant occurrences in reality via different sources such as blogs, audio, video and newsfeed. Students may be very familiar with New Feed and be completely unaware of it. Facebook’s homepage to users is a RSS system of updates: “The Atom feed or RSS feed of your friends' notes, statuses, or links or an individual user's notes, statuses, or links contains that content only, whereas News Feed contains stories about photo postings, relationship changes, etc. Also, your News Feed won't show a story every time one of your friends posts a note to Facebook; your News Feed only contains the stories we think you'll be the most interested in. The RSS or Atom feeds of a user's notes or your friends' notes, for example will contain every note posted. And finally, even though most web browsers display Atom or RSS feeds readably, you'll typically want to use a news aggregator to keep track of them” (http://www.facebook.com/help/?topic=subscriptions). This modern, “hip” usage is already something the majority of the population, uses and likes, especially in a social aspect.

As an English Major I was pleased to see the numerous amounts of writing tools. I was especially pleased to see sites like Writing Fun that help students understand the organizational skills in writing different papers. Writing fun is an interesting tool, because all the examples shown for each type of paper (eg—Persuasive, narrative, etc.) had an example of elementary school age papers to high school level papers. This could be very useful in helping and guiding students to learn the correct format. Sites such as this and blogs are both resources for students to learn and be creative. Blogging allows for people with similar interests to write input. As a teacher I have one opinion, but message boards and blogs allow other students and people from all over the world to offer input. This could potentially be a really unique opportunity for students to experience. Blogs can also be anonymous and as a teacher, it could be beneficial to allow students critique each other without bias. The opportunities are endless. Among the writing Web 2.0 tools there were also many sites that incorporate pictures with stories or let students create online journal. Both techniques are very Bookr, Mixbook, Takatok, and Class Tools are all sites that allow books to be created with writing and pictures. This helps keep up creativity and help organize classroom information in a fun way. These sites are not quite alternatives to writing, but enhance the experience and make connections through pictures. These sites allow for a presentable version of texts in a way that is not just words. They allow for a lot of creativity and variation for both students and teachers. I would probably consider such sites for harder texts or by trying to make words more relatable to students. Yahoo, Bing, MSN—there’s lots of search engines out there, but there’s one that stands out to me above them all: Google. This search engine has advanced to be more than a mere search engine; Google is a useful tool in many ways, with dozens of tools. I love that Google Scholar can help filter out junk and find scholarly articles. This helps when there are so many websites with falsified information or websites like Wikipedia, which can be useful, but can also be altered by anyone and any information can be uploaded. Google also offers Google Docs. This can be a useful tool for teachers as it is like a word document, but additional parties can see the writing process with access to the proper link. This can help students and teachers see edited materials and the process in which students write and learn and work. Google sites allows users to create WebPages and Google even has their own Web Browser, Google Chrome. Youtube.com is a HUGE site that is popular amongst the young and they old. Young pop sensation, Justin Bieber was discovered through YouTube as were many more rising stars. This tool can be used as a tool in the classroom as well, and not just for entertainment. Often users can make their own videos or watch fun parodies or learn about technology or even watch educational seminars. YouTube can be used to show things like art, medicine, or more that simply cannot be explained in a textbook. The possibilities of video feed are endless, which is why it should be utilized as a very important Web 2.0 tool. Podcasting is one of the tools I am least familiar with. I hope to become more knowledgeable of this tool and use it in the classroom. I have personally listened to some casts that were for Chaucer and Shakespeare. The ability for a student to listen to harder to read text often highly exemplifies the experience with the text. I am sure that Podcasts have more than this single use of reading, but that was one of the experiences I have been particularly fond of. These tools all offer unique and endless possibilities for both the teachers and students to experience. As a teacher I could utilize all sorts of tools to enhance the learning processes. As, Web 2.0 may be complicated and often a pain, it should be recognized that this generations and future generations are highly creative and often know and feel comfortable using these tools. Facebook was made by an undergrad named Mark Zuckerberg from Harvard and became the youngest billionaire of all time. There is clearly potential in Web 2.0 and the youth and Web 2.0 is a tool to be utilized to its fullest, including the classroom!