Web+2.0

Date: 6/30/12 To: Dr. Yeh From: Dan McPherson Subject: Web 2.0 Essay

I think web 2.0 in education is a must not only for teachers but for all students. By using the tools available to me from web 2.0., I will not only bring some fun into the classroom but I will give students who have a difficult time expressing themselves more opportunities to express not only what they have learned but also to be creative in how they articulate themselves. Working in a special education environment with students who sometimes lack motivation and become easily frustrated can be very trying for me. By incorporating some of the tools provided in web 2.0, I can alleviate some of this frustration by allowing students to use tools that will make it easier for them to complete assignments that they will be proud of and can share more easily with their parents and friends. Having students that feel proud of their work through the use of technology should assist them on the path to academic success.
 * 1) ****What do you think of Web 2.0 in education **

Another website that I found under the writing tool category was writingprompts.tumble.com which is a website dedicated to giving students ideas for subjects to write about. Along with the idea comes a visual or picture that aids in giving the student more ideas to write and be creative. This website contains ideas from all kinds of subjects that might be brought up in class. Under the quizzes category, I found a website called .easytestmaker.com This is a free online test generator which allows students to take quizzes at home if they miss school. This website is very flexible and allows teachers to make up quizzes that contain multiple choice questions, fill in the blank, short answer and essay questions. It grades them automatically and sends the results to the teacher. I know this website will be of great assistance to me. I will be able to post current tests and quizzes on this website so that I can receive student results quickly and which will allow me more time to help students during class time. I was especially happy to see under the creative tools category the website ldd.lego.com. This website provides a free download which allows building with Lego blocks on line. Students can be creative as they want and can build anything from buildings and animals to robots and cars. They can create objects to help explain a point they are trying to convey about a project or assignment. The last resource I looked at was under the organizing tool and was a website named classtools.net. What I especially liked about this website was a timeline tool that made making timelines very easy and fast. You can upload pictures to this website for your timeline. Use different colors for information for the timeline and even publish your project to the web or e-mail it to your teacher for grading. I really liked the idea of getting away from poster boards and glue and instead using a program like this where you can incorporate information and visuals from the internet to really be creative about the information contained in the timeline. I plan to use these tools in the following ways in my classroom for the upcoming year: With pixton.com I am going to encourage my students to write more than they have in the past. I am excited to use this website to have students explain to me what a bad job interview might look like and have the students re-create a bad job interview using the comic strip as a tool. I then can publish each strip that the students make and have other students add ideas about what went wrong in the interview. Students can add pictures of people not dressed appropriately, talking on their cell phones, using slang language during the interview and not making good eye-contact. This will be a great way to motivate students who have very little self-confidence to really learn from this assignment and be prepared for a real life job interview. With the writing prompts website I love the idea of visuals to give students a wider variety of information to write about. A good warm-up class activity will giving students a writing prompt about the subject of a new lesson. I think it would be an excellent idea for students to walk into class and see a visual writing prompt projected up on the wall for them to encourage them to think about what they want to write. Over the years I have acquired a great deal of quizzes and tests that I keep paper copies of. I can think of no greater joy then putting these on easytestmaker.com and have the students work on these assessments either at school or at home. I also really like that they will be graded instantly and this will allow me more time to improve my lesson plans instead of grading. I really think that of all the websites, this one will really help me improve how I give assessments. I have found that students really like to build with Legos but hate cleaning them up and get very frustrated when they can’t find a certain piece. I am hoping to use this website to help students re-create real life obstacles and incorporate this information into their projects. One example of this would be building a home and then writing a lease for it to rent out to other people. A description of the house would have to be in the lease and the students could create that house with Legos. Under the organizing tool I found a website called classtools.net which will help students out with timelines. So much more information and creativity can be incorporated into a timeline when it is done on the computer. I don’t think I will ever use poster boards again. I cannot wait to use this project when having students create timelines about their own futures and when they plan on certain events happening. They can put when and where they will go to college, find a career, get married, have children, when they might retire. It will be exciting for students to be able to think and re-organize this timeline instead of having to start all over again with a poster board and glue and cutting out pictures. I believe the students will be overjoyed that they can now complete this project on the computer.
 * 2) ****Features of the 5 Web 2.0 tools you select respectively from the site **
 * I evaluated five resources from the ** http://cooltoolsforschools.wikispaces.com/ website. Each website has features that will help me in my classroom. In the writing tools category, I selected pixton.com which is a comic strip maker. At this website students can make a comic strip and be as creative as they want. While being creative they can write about different subjects. When given an assignment, students can make up a comic strip about it and submit it electronically to the teacher. The teacher then can approve or send back the assignment to the students for revision. Once the teacher approves the assignment, it can be published to the whole class which allows other students to comment on the project. It is a great way to get feedback not only from teachers but other students as well. Students can use the skills they have acquired from facebook.com and apply those skills to projects given in class.
 * 3) How you will use those 5 tools in your teaching respectively (please use concrete examples). **