There is a whole new world of OnLine Tools
available to use in the classroom and
encourage collaboration out of it.
They come under the umbrella of Web2.0
or the read/write web.
Much of this is predicated on an all singing, dancing, wifi enabled micro computing device, with touch input, both fingers (for keyboard) and pen (for drawing), camera, audio recording, 24 hr battery life, with about an 8 inch screen. Designed and produced by Apple, costing about £150. One for every child.
There's a post here from an educator in the USA
that
sums up the current ideas (March 2008) about Web 2.0.
The list here is by no means exhaustive and new things are appearing or being found almost daily at the moment. A snapshot around early 2008.
Please let me know if you want anything added here.
For an ongoing collection of links go here
BLOGS
A blog is the most obvious example. Children can be
involved in writing and maintaining it with ease.
It's fast and immediate. You can add text, images,
video, podcasts, maps, presentations, photos to a blog.
It's reflective, collaborative
and it's a great way for parents to
know what's happening in the classroom.
You can easily link to other schools or sites of interest.
The children can own it easily.
There are Education providers of BlogSpace where you pay an annual sum and everything is set up for you.
or
or commercial ones like Blogger, Typepad and many others.
20 Steps to blogging heaven using Type Pad from Adam Sutcliffe.
Or you can learn how to get your own domain name and manage your own.
Our webhost comes with free installation of as many wordpress blogs as we need and all for
about £60 /yr.
There's a good post about 'Why Blog?' from
Redbridge Primary ICT with links to resources and how to.
We're not going to compete with MySpace and the like and you may prefer to use those, but what if you could create your own?
Here is a group of schools set up in Ning
There's Social Networking Software that you could host yourself as well.
Web 2.0 doesn't solve the problem of computer ownership but it does solve the problem of software. You don't have to pay for a wordprocessor or an image editor because it's all availble online for free (at the moment!) and if it isn't, you just move on to the next one that is.
The great thing is the collaborative nature of much of the new software available.
There's an American Social Network devoted to exploring this technology.
Softease will bring it all together in
Honeycomb
Podcasting across the curriculum.
This comes from a post on the Redbridge Primary ICT Consultant Blog.
Installs a random website finder button on your firefox toolbar. If you got to the point of using the web as a magazine rack, then this one adds a lucky dip flavour. It's extraordinary what you can find.
StumbledUpon these brilliant Storm Chaser Pictures, for example, from Extreme Instability
