Web+2.0

Web 2.0 Web 2.0 is a series of online tools that has made the world of communication much more efficient and convenient. With Web 2.0 anyone can create a presence on the World Wide Web. It gives people the ability to share information instantaneously with any person who has internet access. Instead of just being able to read information we are now part of the enormous global community that is the internet. Podcasting, blogging, PBWorks, slide, and Google documents are some of the most useful tools in the Web 2.0 arsenal. Podcasting is a tool used to give people access to audio recordings via the web. Podcasting gives people the ability to share audio files in a variety of ways including on peoples blogs, on other tools like Wikispaces, and in advertisements. The audio files can be listened to using the audio player attached to your desktop or laptop computer, and can also be downloaded onto portable audio devices such an iPod or MP3 player. In many ways, podcasting has revolutionized the platform in which teachers can teach. Because of podcasting you can give a lecture to a group of students while recording your lecture. After your lecture is over you can put the recording online as a podcast so your students can listen to lecture again when studying. Part of being a good teacher is giving your students all of the resources possible. With podcasting your students can reference material twenty four hours a day. Another way podcasting can be useful in academia is to have students do presentations in podcast form. This is a useful tool because it teaches your student practical computer skills and it gives the students a chance to analyze and study each other’s presentations. Blogging is another amazing tool in the Web 2.0 repertoire. A blog is a personal collaboration of a person or person’s thoughts, feelings, pictures, and any other form of presentable electronic information. Blogging is one of the most widely used and followed forms of journalism in the world today. Although, when reading blogs it is important to notate the source and use what tools are necessary to determine a blogs credibility. For example, a blog made by a teenage boy with no media affiliation is much less credible that a blog from an Associated Press journalist. As is the case with most online sources, credibility must always be investigated. There are many ways to use blogging in a teaching environment. An instructor could create a blog for each of his or her classes a keep an ongoing lesson going outside of the classroom. In a sense, blogging gives an instructor a chance to continue a lesson after the class is over. A teacher can now expect more from his or her student’s homework because all of the material can be readily available at the push of a button. Another amazing way to use blogging as a teaching tool is to have your students keep an online blog throughout the duration of a semester. As a history teacher I would find it incredibly useful to have my students write in their blog what they learned in my class at the end of each week. I could then go through all of their blogs and make sure they all understand the material. If they do not I can write to them on their blog the correct information. PBWorks and Wikispaces are two incredible Web 2.0 tools. With these tools a person can create a website in a matter of minutes for anyone to see and contribute to. With Wikispaces it is now possible for all instructors and students to create an academic presence outside of the classroom. PBWorks and Wikispaces take blogging many steps further. In a blog you can share thoughts and pictures like you can on PBWorks and Wikispaces but the difference is that PBWorks and Wikispaces is laid out like and actual website with a home page and specific pages. There are more detailed aspects to one of these programs than there is in an ordinary blog. A student can now create their own webpage pertaining to an individual class. PBWorks and Wikispaces give instructors the ability to come up with a myriad of different projects for students. For example, as a history teacher I could have each student in my class pick a state. Then I could have each student make an interactive website about their state. There could be pages on each student’s site for their states history, economics, geography, and many other features. Another way a teacher could use these programs for teaching would be to have each student use PBWorks and Wikispaces to create an online portfolio of all their work for the semester. This would help them keep track of their assignments and teach them organizational skills. Slide is a Web 2.0 tool that pertains to pictures. This tool gives you the ability to display slide shows in various ways. It also has special effects and features that let you add text and other images to your slides. This tool is great for those visual learners out there. In a classroom setting slide can be used by both teachers and students. A teacher can use the tool to show students pictures of things pertaining to the lesson and can add text and other things that will aid in the learning process. A student can use slide in his or her presentations. An educational project a student could do with slide could involve the progression of plant life. The student could take a picture of a plant from seedling to death and document it in a progression of slides where the student uses text to identify and explain the process seen in each picture. Google Documents is also a valuable Web 2.0 tool. It gives consumers of all kinds the ability to create, share, and edit documents anywhere at any time. With Google docs a person could start writing a document, get on a plane, and begin right where they left off after they land, all without ever saving that document to any form of personal computer. A program like Google Documents is very useful for those who rely on public internet access. A practical use of Google Documents in academia would be storage. If a student is writing a paper in the computer lab on campus and he realizes he has no way of saving his information he can save the file on Google Documents and access it later whenever and wherever he needs it. Google Documents is just another useful Web 2.0 tool that stores information for all forms of consumers. There are so many amazing Web 2.0 tools available to the public. They help use be creative with our projects, store information, and express thoughts to the world anywhere and at anytime. Web 2.0 has revolutionized the teaching world by bringing it out of the classroom. In many ways, this is just the beginning of web based academia. Who knows what the future holds for this new form of human interaction.