Web 2.0 Article

The Web 2.0 article brought up a lot of important points to consider when comparing Web 2.0 to the earlier stages of the Worldwide Web. I agree with the author that the label of Web 2.0 is a lot less important than the concept of it. The concept of Web 2.0 is fascinating to me. The fact that the idea that people had in the 1960's of linking people together actually happened and is present in our everyday lives now blows my mind.

I really enjoyed reading about the different concepts of Web 2.0. Because I use it so frequently, I never really took a moment to step back and look at all of it's components individually. I liked how the author laid out the differences in styles of websites with Web 2.0. For example, the idea that webpages are looked at like books. And that blogs aren't particularly webpages, but rather posts to the same webpage. Wikis are described as a stream for conversation, which is ultimately the greatest function to date of Web 2.0 in my opinion. It is hard to think of anything that goes better together than communication and learning. The two being tied together is key to successful learning experiences. The openness of Web 2.0 allows for a webpage to go from being "book-like" to a two way access webpage. 

Having the ability to have two way access is essential, especially when it comes to higher education. I can hardly imagine furthering my schooling with Web 2.0, and I can say that I feel spoiled in that regard. School sites are perfect for interactive learning through Web 2.0 because it allows for groups of students to share ideas, as well as professors or even entire classes. Not only is it engaging and interactive for groups of students, but it is widely used as an ease of access to administrative websites. If I logged onto my school's homepage now almost every link that followed would have the option to "contact us" or even chat live in some cases allowing the student to have full access to multiple people on campus at any given time. All this would be impossible without Web 2.0, so yes, I do believe that Web 2.0 is considered a new wave of innovation for teaching and learning. How could it not be?

Web Based Tools

This week I had the pleasure of exploring Web based Tools. The only one that I was familiar with was Wordle, so that was exciting! Voicethread was a tool that I could completely see myself using. I love the freeness of the app and how easy it was to use! It would be perfect for online classes because it allows you to have the ability to rewatch the lesson over again if you wanted to. Being able to use the cursor and draw is important as well because it allows for a certain kind of guidance during instruction. Here is my short videothread describing a brochure I had recently created.
https://voicethread.com/new/share/6208153/

Animoto was so fun as well! I love how it made me feel like I was making a movie. Talk about making learning fun and engaging! I would use Animoto in my classroom to introduce new topics and to get my students excited to learn and explore what was coming next. It would also be a great tool to use to summarize units and use as a fun study guide. You could add relevant music and show clips and pictures of what were key aspects of the unit, This would help visual learners to categorize and sort which information was important. Here is my Animoto I created to help be begin celebrating my birthday which is coming up!
https://animoto.com/play/t0LEg7g4KRMX0tTH3n54Bg

Lastly is Wordle. Another great visual learning tool to show key words! Again I used my birthday as the theme. Enjoy!

Microsoft Access

Before completing the tutorial, Microsoft Access was completely foreign to me. It seems to be a great tool to help stay organized and manage information. I can see why so many small businesses would use it to keep track of clients, money, etc. Being an educator, I was playing around in Access and trying to figure out how I would be able to use it for my students or in my classroom.

Access has the option to sort through information through any query that you select. Therefore, Access seems that it would be a great tool to use for grading or keeping track of assessments. Rather than going through your entire list of students and highlighting who you still need to assess or write a goal for, you can query the information and it will make a nice neat list for you. You could also use it to keep track of students assignments, who has turned it in and who's you are still waiting on. As I continue to learn what Access has to offer I will explore how to filter it into the classroom and post more about my findings.

Tech Tools

The tool that I found to be most interesting was the choice to "Connect with other classrooms". I have never used ePals or even heard of it before, but looking into it I find it to be an extremely useful tool for education. You are giving your students the option to not only connect with other students within your school, but also within your community, state, country, or worldwide. This is incredible! I remember being in school and asking my peers what they were learning in their classrooms with their teachers, We would bounce ideas off of each other, compare and contrast how our teachers were presenting the information to us, etc. By allowing your class the option to connect with other classrooms you are allowing the learners to share all different kinds of learning experiences, giving them a plethora of choices to decide how they learn best.

Now lets think bigger. Bigger than just class to class, but rather school to school. ePals can be a great tool for pen-palling. You can connect your learners to other learners within the community, or across the country. ePals allows learners to even connect with students on the other side of the world. How cool would it be to have been able to chat with someone your age, learning what you are learning, thousands of miles away? Being able to differentiate how education varies across countries and cultures is an incredible learning experience that can be given to students with ePals. Exploring this Tech Tool has shown me how incredible and connected we can be as learners as well as educators.