Tag: web 2.0

The Internet has so much to offer and now there are thousands of new Web 2.0 tools and apps that it is difficult for users to sift through them all to find what they need. I am lucky to be on the ISTE (International Society of Technology in Education) SigILT (Special Interest Group Innovative Learning Technologies) who presented a Web 2.0 Smackdown. I co-presented with Elizabeth Hubbell with the support of an amazing board running the backchannel: Katie Christo and Adam Wendt.

Elizabeth and I practiced our Webinar using Adobe Connect that had a limit of 100 spaces. We noticed on Twitter all the interest seemed like that would not be enough spaces so we moved to GoToMeeting. Elizabeth and I were both on Macs and found we couldn’t archive and I had no access to change screen sharing. I worked blind while Elizabeth walked through my presentation. So Peggy George who was in our audience did a screen capture and uploaded the video. How is that for thinking on your feet!

“Web 2.0 Tools We Can’t Live Without” from Peggy George on Vimeo.

http://vimeo.com/15014762

Chris Lehman is principal of the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, PA. The Science Leadership Academy is a partnership high school between the School District of Philadelphia and The Franklin Institute. SLA is an inquiry-driven, project-based high school focused on 21st century learning that opened its doors on September 7, 2006. SLA provides a rigorous, college-preparatory curriculum with a focus on science, technology, mathematics and entrepreneurship. Yes – I said entrepreneurship. Students set up their own businesses and develop products and services.

ISTE 2011 is in Philadelphia next year. If you are looking at changing your school or changing you, I suggest you finding a way of going to ISTE and immersing yourself in this new learning environment where technology is transparent and ubiquitous, where students can create, collaborate, and change their world. There will be activities at his school. If you cannot attend ISTE, the school hosts Educon each year where students and attendees participate. If you are looking at strategies to move to your school of the future, I suggest you follow Chris. This presentation below is over a year old but still timely:

Chris used the Pechu Kucha model of 20 slides in less than 5 minutes. Whew! Great ideas with great visuals. Here’s the presentation:

Have you ever heard of Smackdowns? These are quick under 2 minute demos of cool Web 2.0 tools. Here is a list of some of the sites people shared.

Wikispaces Sandbox new features

• can paste in word docs without unformatting
• new editor

Storybird.com – flash-based digital storytelling tool – social tool = can do collaborative projects

• select a collection
• can add their own stories
• grab pictures and add text

Goofram.com – combines a Google search and Wolfram search on same page. Try Wolfram as a knowledge search. Compare Snickers vs Baby Ruth bar.

QRCode – make your own barcode reader. http://qrcode.kaywa.com

Gmail Labs – go to the green beaker – enables Green Robot to see who else has an Android phone.

Mashpedia – the Real-time multimedial social encyclopedia – fills in with YouTube videos, twitter feed, Picasa and Flicker galleries, news posts, blog posts, eBooks.

Paper.li – helps you create a twitter as a newspaper – create a start page on what you are researching – attractive feed

Search posters – http://springfieldlibrary.wikispaces.com using Glogster to help with links (Joyce Valenza)

Shareaholic.com – share all of your sites and social networking

Add to your tool bar Rd (readability) and IP (instapaper.com)

Smart Notebook Express BETA – http://express.smarttech.com – lets you use notebook files online

http://exchange.smarttech.com – Smart Exchange – find lesson plans for your SMART Board

Yolink education: http://www.yolinkeducation.com – see behind links – sweet search (www.sweetsearch.com) embedded yolink into the search engine. Helps student find what’s relevant. then search within the search results keywords. then opens summaries of search with links

Metamark.net – another URL shorter along with custom urls

LongURL.org – get what the shortened URL and points to the long url

If you use Twitter alot, you can read it later. http://readitlaterlist.com – icon that sits in toolbar that you can click to save to read later. Works on every browser and iPad. Bookmarking service that lets you. Twitbit lets you save your Tweets to readitlaterlist.

Jumpcut http://jumpcut.sourceforge.net – lets you multiclip up to 40 clicks

Edmodo – www.edmodo.com – share content and realtime . Teachers can set up groups and then can enter into private social network with their students. Grades. Library with folders and interactivity. Co-teaching with multiple teachers managing groups, subgroups.

Bingle.nu – in case you need to make a bing and google search at the same time.

Share Google Squared again: www.google.com/squared

Wordle tip – use a tilde as spaces to keep words in a phrase or sentence together

Thanks to Steve Hargadon for hosting Edubloggercon and all the people that shared during this demo. Was not able to get all the names of presenters so don’t feel comfortable listing names unless I can list them all.

Another site I heard about during the conference:

http://www.appcelerator.com/ - make your own iPhone apps
Free Technology for Teachers: Aviary for Education

I’ll be sharing more that I hear about. Putting together a column for OnCUE about cool tools so if you have any new tools you would like to share, please leave a comment.