Friday, October 7, 2011

My Favorite Web 2.0 Tools

What is Web 2.0?

It is the interactive internet of today. In the early days of internet, web sites were an electronic to read information on a given topic. Web sites were not interactive, did not have video, and could not be modified by the user. Essentially, early web sites were little more than an electronic form of a book or magazine.

Today, however, web sites are interactive. Users can modify pages such as Wikis to share information with others who share one’s interests. Additionally, many web sites include video and audio to bring the information to life. Furthermore, many (if not most) web sites have an area in which readers, consumers, or customers can ask questions, leave feedback, or request a response from the owner of the site.

However, Web 2.0 is not limited to obtaining information. It includes a completely new way of being productive in one’s personal life, or business. The accessibility of the internet, using computer workstations, laptops, tablets, PDAs, and smart phones, has created an environment in which business is conducted “in the cloud,” or on-line. Documents can no longer reside on a single computer, and carrying disks or flash drives has become antiquated. In today’s world, Web 2.0 tools and applications allow for documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and much more to be created without being bound to a single computer, or even purchasing software. Some of these applications and tools are Google Docs, Team Viewer, Delicious, Tiny URL and much more.

How Can We Use This In Education?

Google Docs allows students to use word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations without the expense of purchasing software. Furthermore, with web based files, students can work collaboratively on any project without compatibility issues of different versions of software, i.e. MS Office 2003, 2007, or 2010. Moreover, students need not be in the same physical location, or even be working at the same time, to work together on group projects. What is more, teachers can view and comment on students work in progress. Finally, students will not forget to bring their homework to class, as they have their documents available at anytime, anywhere that has internet access.

One Cool Tool ~ Tiny URL!

The internet has a lot of great information for teachers to share with students, however web addresses are long and complicated. For example, in a class studying asteroids, a teacher might want to share a news article from the NASA web site with her students. The web address she wishes to share is http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/news/wise20110926.html. This is a difficult address for her students to remember, or even type in correctly. One choice the teacher has is to use Tiny URL to simplify the address. The teacher visits www.tinyurl.com and pastes the long web address into the correct field. Then he/she types a simple description to use instead, for example NASAasteroid. Now, the students can access www.tinyurl.com/NASAasteroid which is easier to remember and to type.

1 comment:

  1. Excellent. You're all ready to share TinyURL with the class. Great examples.

    ReplyDelete