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We find technology everywhere in today’s world. Why not utilize these fantastic tools in the classroom? The younger generation of students is virtually born into technology. These children often begin using these resources at a very early age and are often times more versed than their parents and teachers. These new and not-so-new technology pieces add a different dimension to our teaching.

Twitter

Short and sweet. Twitter provides us with social networking at a glance. It gives us 140 characters or less to express ourselves to others. It can also serve as a valuable tool in education. Many students in today’s classrooms have cell phones and utilize social media such as Twitter, so it only makes sense to tap in to the potential. On the positive side, you can quickly communicate with others, such as classmates or students who are “followers” of you. It provides others with quick and immediate feedback. “Metacognition—the practice of thinking about and reflect­ing on your learning—has been shown to benefit comprehension and retention .” (ELI Publication, 2007). On the downside, is that some of the posts can be quite meaningless. Users must also be aware of what they are posting in real-time “tweets.” Usefulness would be at a minimum for elementary teachers because of the lack of cell phones for the younger students. Personally, it wouldn’t fit my teaching needs other than to communicate with parents. Care must be taken though because anything that you post, your followers can see.

Screencasting

Screencasting is a fantastic tool for helping students in their learning endeavors. The major benefit comes with students being able to be led step-by-step at his/her own pace and convenience. “Students can stop and start presentations, giving them control over how a lesson unfolds, which can help accommodate different learning styles and speeds.” (ELI Publication, 2006). With the rise of flipped-classrooms, screencasts are becoming a big part in education. A great benefit of a screencast is that it can be accessed from virtually anywhere. If a student is absent, or you want to provide supplemental material for your students to view at home, they now have that ability. Even though they do provide great benefits, they can be a bit monotonous. They are not generally known for the “wow factor.” These will serve great potential for any age group. Placing these on a webpage or subscribed to as an RSS feed can allow my students to have unlimited access.

Blogs

From an everyday novice blogger to professional writer, blogging has a place for everyone. As a teacher, blogging can be a great way to connect with students. A blog can serve as a tool to let students get to know a teacher away from school, everyday happenings in the classroom, or as a celebration of student work. Blogging has unlimited potential. An even greater benefit is that the students can interact with the teacher by commenting. This can serve a greater purpose by opening the door to conversations that students may not be comfortable asking in person at school.  “ Blogs foster the growth of communities, and the dynamics of collaborative filtering and recommending/referring may provide new ways to evaluate, vet, and critique student-created knowledge.” (ELI Publication, 2005). Blogging, although a great tool, does have it’s shortcomings. One of the major problems is that anyone can post anything. Great care needs to be taken when viewing material from blogs and the accuracy needs to be verified, especially when using blogs for research purposes. “Users visiting a blog might see it as factual or authoritative when, in fact, it is the online equivalent of a soap box: a place to speak and to be heard.” (ELI Publication, 2005).

Flickr

With the readily available digital cameras, whether it be a stand alone or on a cell phone (let’s face it, who doesn’t have a phone these days without a camera) why not have a place to store and display the wonderful pictures we take? Flickr does that for us. By using Flickr, as a teacher, I can easily share classroom photos or field trips with parents and students. They can access them for years to come as long as they have internet access. The thing about Flickr is that everyone that I want can access them without me having to worry about spending money to print copies for everyone. Flickr can also be used for virtual field trips. By searching for tags of a particular unit of study, we can get a glimpse into other cultures that we normally would not be able to travel to. The downside to this is that, just as in blogging, anyone can post and not everything is accurate. “As with any user-created taxonomy, or “folksonomy,” Flickr’s tags are subject to the mis­takes of the users who enter them.” (ELI Publication, 2008). Users need to be aware and use some subjectivity when using others photos in the classroom.

Wiki

Wiki’s serve as a fantastic collaboration tool in the education world. Students can now quickly and easily via the internet on group projects. In my classroom, for example, students can collaborate on their science fair projects, which are solely done at home. This helps to eliminate trying to find time around busy schedules to meet up. As a teacher, I can also collaborate with fellow teachers on our units. Wiki’s allow us to not only collaborate, but to see the evolution of these projects, and that in itself, lends to higher learning. While a great collaboration tool, there are a few downsides to using a Wiki. The first, and foremost, requiring an internet connection. The purpose is designed to be used on the internet which limits many of my students. I not only teach in a high-poverty school, but also a rural one, which internet connections can become very sporadic. This limits using a Wiki for some students, just at school. “Because users can modify the content of a wiki (add to, edit, delete materials), allowing such manipulation of the site’s information carries some risks.” (ELI Publication, 2005). Closely monitoring the Wiki is required and can at times, be time consuming.

Facebook

It would seem that everyone in the world has a Facebook account. Not everyone really has one, but that is just how many people are connected via Facebook that it would seem like that. Facebook is an ever growing social networking tool. Seeing the number of users, it would only make sense that it finds its way into the classroom. At my current grade level, 5th grade, it doesn’t serve as great of a purpose as it will when applied to older grades. Many of my students don’t have a Facebook account yet but it still can be a valuable tool to connect with parents. Currently, email is a very efficient way for many parents but Facebook users are connecting to it using just more than their computers, they are using their cell phones to get instant notifications. This can be a great tool for sending out quick reminders to a group or individual celebrations. Once again, as with other technology pieces, Facebook needs to be closely monitored. People often post comments and photos without thinking about the repercussions. Privacy concerns are also a big issue. “Facebook lets users make decisions that many of them may lack the judgment to make well.” (ELI Publication, 2007 May). For example, a teacher, who uses Facebook, probably started using it to connect with friends before fellow students and parents started connecting with the teacher. This could mean a variety of issues…having a friend post an inappropriate comment or tagging in a picture. Great care needs to be taken if you are considering using Facebook in the classroom.

Podcasting

With the ever increasing rise in the use of mp3 players or Ipod’s, it all makes sense to take into the resources that many people already possess. Podcasting makes use of all these tools. Podcasting can be used as another educational tool. By using podcasting, students can now review lectures or have access to material from a class they may have been absent from. These are very helpful, especially in high school and college where lots of note taking generally occurs. It is a very cheap and effective way to reach students. Podcasting does have its limitations though, especially in my classroom. There are several things that affect its usefulness. Podcasts, especially for younger students, can become very boring. There are no visuals to make it more interesting and some of the speakers on the podcasts don’t use a lot of voice inflection to keep attention. Along with keeping attention, comes with interaction. “Podcasting is not designed for two-way interaction or audience participation.” (ELI Publication, June 2005). Anyone who has taught, especially in the elementary classroom knows just how important interaction and participation are to the learning process.

RSS

Nobody wants to spend countless hours browsing through various news sites and blogs that serve no purpose to the user. When I want to check the news, I want my local news. When I’m looking for education articles that are relevant to me, I want to quickly go to my trusted sources. This is what RSS feeds to for us. They quickly allow us to access content that we want in one place rather than sifting through many different news sites and blogs. This is especially beneficial when doing research. The user can subscribe to feeds that they want. “Users can subscribe to feeds independently, tailoring the content they receive to their unique interests and needs.” (ELI Publication, April 2007). In my classroom, my students are able to subscribe to feeds such as National Geographic and Scholastic and get news which we will use in our blogs and research. The students can access reliable sources with trusted information. It becomes another lesson in itself—finding and using materials that are proven, not just any info out there. That becomes one of the negatives of the process as well. It does take time to find these feeds but once we do, we have them in one place. Nonetheless, it is a great way for my students to practice their research skills and become more efficient users of the web.

As you can see, Web 2.0 resources are plentiful. Many of these resources unleash unlimited potential for educational use if properly implemented. While these are great resources and applications for the classroom, the technology still needs to be closely monitored to provide safety and so that students get the most out of it. If you haven’t started yet, what are you waiting for?

ELI Publication. (2007, July 18). //7 thinks you should know about twitter//. Retrieved from [] ELI Publication. (2006). 7 things you should know about.. screencasting. Retrieved from [] ELI Publication. (2005, August). //7 things you need to know about blogging//. Retrieved from [] ELI Publication. (2008, February). //7 things you need to know about flickr//. Retrieved from [] ELI Publication. (2005, July). //7 things you need to know about wikis//. Retrieved from [] ELI Publication. (2007, May). //7 things you need to know about Facebook II//. Retrieved from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7025.pdf ELI Publication. (2005, June). //7 things you need to know about podcasting.// Retrieved from [] ELI Publication. (2007, April). //7 things you need to know about rss.// Retrieved from [] Richardson, W. (2010). //Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms //. (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks: Corwin