Our flying around the world in less than a class period of time and learners creating educational adventures for others is the essence of Web 2.0, the read/write web. The web is no longer just a sit-and-get repository of information and products. Everyone is now able to create and publish on the web using Google Earth tours, blogs, wikis, Facebook, or hundreds of other Web 2.0 tools.
Many of the students in your school and mine are creating and publishing on the web now. Educators need to safely harness their students’ creativity and guide it into productive learning. “In reality, we now have a Read/Reflect/Write/Participate Web, one that will continue to evolve and grow in ways not yet thought of, spurred by the efforts of creative teachers who recognize the potential to improve student learning” (Richardson, 2009, p. 137).
Teachers and administrators who are part of the online master’s degree program enrolled in the optional summer course at Saint Joseph’s College of Maine and explored the educational possibilities for blogs, GoogleEarth, Meebo, Moodle, podcasting, RSS feeds, Second Life, social networking, Twitter, VoiceThread, wikis, and YouTube.
The site www.youtube.com contains thousands of user-created videos and is very useful in this discussion. YouTube tutorials are a good source to guide the user through the basics of each of Web 2.0 tools listed here. Videos like “Blogs in Plain English” or “Wikis in Plain English” created by www.commoncraft.com are particularly useful and available on YouTube. This is the very essence of Web 2.0: The power of the read/write web is readily available with learning resource tools produced by users of the web to learn about the read/write web.
The educators in this course could readily see practical uses in their schools for blogs, GoogleEarth, Moodle, podcasting, VoiceThread, and wikis. Some Web 2.0 tools did not immediately bring educational uses to mind. During the exploration of various “islands” on Second Life, a virtual little girl came up to us and cried “help me; help me” and then on another island a Trojan warrior attacked us. The entire class felt a sense of unease and scampered away from this Web 2.0 tool before we fully understood the educational benefits possible from this visually amazing 3-D virtual world. Social networking such as Facebook, instant networking like Twitter, and the “live” chatting of Meebo might certainly have educational uses in specific grades or educational settings as long as educators thoughtfully address the issues of student safety. I will briefly describe each of the tools that the class members could envision using in their educational settings.
Blogs [short for web log or weblog] are online journals adaptable to many educational settings at any grade level. A principal, teacher, or even a student can create a blog and post thoughts, news, or items of interest. Others can comment on these posts. This interaction becomes a discussion in a classroom, between a school and parents, or between schools within a diocese. Teachers can use blogs to connect classrooms across the country or around the world. Students and teachers find blogs relatively easy to create. Educators explore sites like www.blogger.com, and www.wordpress.com among many others and discover that blogs are often free. Teachers can explore how other classrooms are using blogs by using the search function on Wordpress and other blog sites.
Moodle is a free course management software tool. Technology administrators can establish a Moodle for a classroom or whole school with links, quizzes, surveys, discussions, subject games, schedules, etc. Students can access Moodle together as a class, use it for extra practice, and allow students to forge ahead of their peers. Though Moodle is free, there may be hosting and other infrastructure costs.
Many students find podcasting inspiring. Even most shy students enjoy communicating their experiences and activities to a wide audience using this Web 2.0 tool. Students can showcase their learning, writing, and verbal skills. They can create book talks, interviews, and class news in podcasting. The learners add background music using programs like GarageBand and Audacity to give these student-created broadcasts a professional feel. Teachers then upload podcasts to iTunes for others to enjoy.
My personal favorite Web 2.0 tool explored during this two-week summer course was VoiceThread. I found VoiceThread quick to learn and easy to use. VoiceThread is a series of pictures with commentary. Others can then add additional comments to each slide. Elementary students can do book talks, middle school students can make reports, high school students can show their latest mission trips using VoiceThread. Go to www.voicethread.com and click the Browse button. In the Search box put in “Flat Stanley Leaves” and then enjoy the show. As with all these Web 2.0 tools, you will find many helpful tutorials available for VoiceThread.
A wiki is a collaborative website which can be edited by anyone granted access to it. Like most of the Web 2.0 tools described here, teachers find wikis relatively easy to set up and usually free. Group projects are ideal for wikis. Everyone knows of the most famous wiki: Wikipedia.org. We all have the power to add to or edit Wikipedia entries. Obviously this leads to concerns of reliability but this is not a worry in a closed wiki with a small group of students working on various aspects of a group project. Students may find that the learning palette of a wiki can indeed add excitement and extra creativity to their projects and educational activities.
An educator using any Web 2.0 tool must understand that it is just that, a tool, and not an end unto itself. Many students find Web 2.0 tools exciting and may engage in the subject-matter learning to a greater depth because of that tool. The graduate students in the summer course at Saint Joseph’s College constantly challenged the educational use of each new tool. These teachers and administrators in this course demanded that any Web 2.0 tool actually enhance the learning and not just be a new toy to entertain.
Will Richardson writes, “The world is changing around us, yet as a system, we have been very, very slow to react. Our students’ realities in terms of the way they communicate and learn are very different from our own” (2009, p. 5).
Teachers follow standards and objectives and should not allow Web 2.0 technologies to distract from the subject matter. Teachers should, however, explore the very best methods to engage their students in meeting those standards and objectives which may indeed include a Web 2.0 tool. A teacher might just find that a classroom blog or a VoiceThread project accentuates the learning, inspires the students, and better meets the required standards and objectives.
Patty Abrahams of Saint Anna School notes, “I see Web 2.0 as a great helpful tool for the future of our classrooms. It allows for real time communication among teachers, students, parents, and administrators. It brings discussions alive in and out of the classroom.” Begin your Web 2.0 journey now by logging into GoogleEarth and visiting Saint Anne School in Santa Ana, California just like the students did last summer in Maine. You will be on your way to using the web in your classroom.
(A version of this article first appeared in Momentum, the official journal of the National Catholic Educational Association.)