5 Web 2.0 in Education

          Web 2.0 tools are often used in classroom elements in many different and interesting ways. Teachers and students both use web 2.0. Web 2.0 are websites that interact with users and other people. Sites that are used for social networking, YouTube and blogs to name a few are web 2.0 tools. Teachers use YouTube to share videos of relevant information to their subject matter, and lots of teachers have started using a classroom blog, where students can post and interact with their classmates. I think those are some of the most useful. Also students use web 2.0 tools all the time. Students can use wiki to engage in collaborative writing and knowledge. Students can use twitter to follow scientists, teachers, and other educational personal, where they can look at the insights of others and also so they can directly ask those scholars questions. Another great web 2.0 tool for students I feel is useful is diigo. On this site, students can use resources found online and take notes directly from that page. All students will need to access these sites are a computer, internet access, a mouse, a keyboard, and a screen (91). The periphery equipment needed would be flash drives and printers.

         The interesting web 2.0 tool that I have decided to use is called diigo. This site allows you to create student accounts for an entire class easily. Students within a diigo group (often a class) can start using all that diigo provides, such as group bookmarks, annotations and group forums. Diigo allows teachers to highlight critical features within a text and images. They can also directly write comments on the webpages, for notes or to even use a series of websites to start conversations or teach a lesson. Diigo integrates tags and folders, highlighting, clipping, sticky notes, and group-based collaboration.

         Privacy is very important for diigo. This site has privacy settings that are pre-set so that only teachers and classmates can communicate. Students can only communicate with their friends and teachers. No one can send the students a message, group invite or write on their wall unless the teacher adds them. Students profile will not be available to public search engines either. To sign up for diigo you can go to this site: www.diigo.com/education.

      I love using concept mapping to study so I was actually super excited to learn how to use concept mapping on a computer. I usually just write them out because I wasn’t aware of a software that could be used online. Concept mapping is a great way to organize thoughts and connect different terms within a subject. It was a little difficult at first to figure it out on the computer but I soon got the hang of it and learned a couple new things. I never knew that there were so many different types of concept mapping, and I also didn’t know that by using linking words it would make it so much easier to understand. I definitely think I will have my students use concept mapping as a way to study. I think having a visual representation of what the students are learning and how the different terms connect is vital! Below is an example of a concept map I made using two different types of concept maps and converging them to one.