John Hardy's List: Web 2.0

"Blogging, and the easy access to--and exchange of--ideas that it has spawned, is having a "transformative" effect on education, according to the winners of the first-ever eSchool News "Best of the Education Blog" Awards. "

"This site is a comprehensive podcasting resource detailing everything you need to know about Podcasting"

"Welcome to the Wetpaint Wikis in Education, a place where educators come together to share tips about using wikis to enhance the learning experience."

"Education blogs are becoming a means for educators, students, and education administrators to interact more effectively than ever before. Technorati currently tracks 63.1 million blogs. Over 5,000 of them are about education. There are over 30,000 blogs hosted at edublogs.org alone. Thanks James Farmer!) Here is a list of our staff's 100 favorites."

"Curriki is an online environment created to support the development and free distribution of world-class educational materials to anyone who needs them. Our name is a play on the combination of 'curriculum' and 'wiki' which is the technology we're using to make education universally accessible."

Wikipedia is a multilingual, Web-based, free-content encyclopedia project based mostly on anonymous contributions. The name "Wikipedia" is a portmanteau of the words wiki (a type of collaborative Web site) and encyclopedia. Wikipedia's articles provide links to guide the user to related pages with additional information.

TagGalaxy is an incredible mashup using images from Flickr and a really cool Flash interface. You can use a series of single word search terms to explore how people have photographed and tagged the world.

Here's a great site, hosted by Discovery Education, that summarizes and provides links to many of the Web 2.0 tools we discussed and/or used in the Summer Institute. Just click on the various categories (e.g., Presentation Tools, Video Tools, etc.) to see listings/links of those types of tools.

Podcasting 101

In your Classroom
Encourage student-centered learning.  Even young students can build web pages, embed images & video, and post documents.   

For your Library
Provide access to information sources, book lists, and links to good articles.  Have the resources stored for future use.  

Throughout your District
Host and share information between students, faculty and staff. Encourage staff development and shared resources across schools.   

The Monster Project encourages the development of reading and writing skills while integrating technology into the classroom. Using monsters as a vehicle, students exchange written descriptions via this wiki, and then recreate their partner's monster without ever looking at the "real thing". During the project, students create, discuss, describe, interpret, analyze, organize and assess their monsters as well as the monsters of their peers.

Well done video on the use of Web 2.0 in classrooms. (Give it time to load. This is streaming video and is of higher quality than YouTube videos.)

Using Web 2.0 technology (wikis) to support the integration of Web 2.0 into teaching and professional development. Click on your favorite Web 2.0 technology - or even better, one that you don't know much about - on the left side of the page to find out more information about that technology, and how to use it in the classroom.

Handy chart that compares blogs, wikis, and Google Docs, using the following criteria: nature, authors, collaborators, organization, updates, benefits, drawbacks, and examples.

Flash app showing how active & dynamic the Social Web, Mobile Industry and Game Business is.

This is a site that focuses on Web 2.0 resources and tools that support Marzano's 9 strategies - or some of them at least.

"Classroom 2.0 is a free, community-supported network. We especially hope that those who are "beginners" will find this a supportive comfortable place to start being part of the digital dialog. Because of spammers, we have to approve all memberships here. While your membership is pending you are still welcome to peruse the site or attend any events!"

"The LearnCentral Social Learning Network integrates the latest online learning tools and innovative technology in a personalised interface for users. In accordance with current trends in the adoption of convergent technologies in the workplace and education, LearnCentral can also provide mulit-way user interaction via its award winning live, virtual classroom - Elluminate Live!, providing innovative and flexible opportunities to engage with all stakeholders. "

Awesome Highlighter lets you highlight text on web pages and then gives you a small link to the highlighted page.

PrintWhatYouLike lets you print the good parts of any web page while skipping ads and other junk.