Web+2.0

Erika Rael October 2, 2010 Web 2.0 I have picked five Web 2.0 tools that I thought would be good for my class and also my student’s parents. They are the RSS Feed, PBWorks, Zooburst, Chirbit, and last one is Jitterbug. The tools I picked are not only educational but fun. The first one I picked is the RSS Feed. The RSS Feed is a way to organize information like articles, PDF’s, blog posts, etc. RSS stands for Really Simple syndication. Many places are using the RSS Feeds for their web pages. For example, 9 news and fox 31 both have this feature on their web page and with this anyone is able to sign up and get news e-mailed to them on a daily basis. I would use this tool in my classroom mostly for the parents. I worked in a school for two years and they would give us papers to send home with the kids about ten minutes before the bell rang at the end of the day. With this tool I would be able to e-mail parents’ current information that the school sends out like picture day or an after school program for the kids. Most kids shove the paper in their backpacks and they forget about it or the parents’ forget to look. This would cut down on paper and also the parents’ would be aware that there could be an e-mail once a week. The second Web 2.0 tool I picked was PBWorks. PBWorks is much like wikispaces. It is extremely fast and is something you can edit. You are able to share this with groups, family, and friends. The people you add can edit or add information if you want them too. Much like RSS Feed you could use this tool for informing parents about things going on in your school or your class. If you have a class picture, you can post it and if parents want to add pictures of their children maybe on vacation they can. The parents can also see pictures of what the kids are doing in the class. Most parents now days are too busy to come to parent teacher conferences but, with this tool the parents can see how their child is doing in the class and post questions or comments about their child. The third tool I found was a writing tool called Zooburst. It is a 3D pop-up book that is clickable to learn more about the characters in the books. Zooburt would be a great way for students to learn how to read and even a better way to have the students get into the characters. Most students do not care about anyone or anything in the story. They are just reading it to get the book over with. Lets’ say a child picked to read Charlotte’s Web and they wanted to know more about Fern or Mr. Zuckerman, all they would have to do is click on the character and it will tell you about them. I think children will learn to love to read with this tool. The next tool I found was an auditory tool called Chirbit. Chirbit is a free online tool for audio sharing. You can record, upload, listen, and share sound bites. You are able to record directly using text to speech. This is a great tool for students to read what they wrote into a microphone and listen to it. When I was little I used to use the piping and talked into one end and listened from another. This tool is great because they can record and listen to it later. I think it would also help with public speaking because other people would be able to listen to it too. The last Web 2.0 tool I found was a tool for music. The music tool is called Jitterbug. Jitterbug is a great tool to discover good music for your students. I know a lot of schools have cut their music programs or are planning on shutting them down soon. Mainstream teachers’ will now have to teach music to their children and as I learned from another class of mine, music is a great way to help students learn. A teacher that I worked with for two years always had music time first thing in the morning and because of that our students’ stayed on track for the first part of class. I think when I become a teacher these tools will help me to stay organized, to keep parents involved, and also to keep my students interested in school