There's a lot of hype surrounding Web 2.0 these days, namely blogs. While often times hype may be unfounded, in the case of Web 2.0 there's something behind it. Most of us know that the methods for organizing and disseminating knowledge in the information age have fundamentally changed. It's a "search don't sort" world, and as such our teachers are learning how to embed these new methods into their curriculum.
For a head-start, you might want to peruse my online course, Web 2.0 for Beginners. Or, if you already know what it's all about, continue reading for some succesful tips on how to use these new tools in your classroom.
- Have a Classroom Blog. As an example, and for a way for you to get the hang of it, keep a blog for you classes. Use this to talk about homework, class themes, teaching strategies, your thoughts, etc. This can be either on your school's intranet or shared with the public. Parents will be thankful and it may just inspire some interesting online conversations.
- Student Journals. Many teachers have student's keep a journal. Why not have it be their own blog? Make sure the first thing you cover is the necessity of authoring for a "global audience".
- Book Reports. Instead of having students write a report and hand it in to you, have them write and publish it to their blog. That way they gain experience writing for the global audience and their report automatically becomes part of your school's knowledge base. Imagine in a few years the wealth of knowledge that could accumulate when students are able to search and cite each other's research.
- Timed Web-Find. This is a very fun activity and increases student's online searching skills. They can do it individually or as competing groups. To prepare, you get on the 'net and search out 10 random facts. Make sure the facts are very specific, like "what is the circumference of the moon", or "who was the 13th president". Then give it to students as a 10-minute timed quiz where the only resource they can use is the Internet. At first they may not be able to find all the answers in the alotted time, but after a few of these they'll become web-research wizards.
- Evaluate-A-Blog. These days blogs on the Internet can be about pretty much anything. If your class has a theme or topic for the month/week, assign groups of students a chunk of time to find blogs on that topic. Have them use a blog search engine (like http://blogsearch.google.com/) so they don't get stuck looking at non-blogs. Then, as a class, evaluate each discovered blog and discuss the merits of each. This is a good way of building the critical assessment skills necessary for defining what is and isn't a good resource. Pay attention to things like grammar, display, citations, and other sound research/publication practices.
These are just some of the basic examples teachers I've worked with are using. There are, of course, many more. Feel free to add comments with your suggestions! Also, if your school doesn't have a "Web 2.0" website for teacher/student use yet, feel free to contact SERRC TechOps for assistance.