Wikitydipitydoo

We're finally in a web 2.0 world, but we're just beginning to skim the surface of web 1.0 tools. I'll admit, I'm guilty of a web 1.0 classroom. I use my smartboard religiously and let my students come up to it and interact just like I used to on the blackboard in school. I graduated with my MA in Special Education in December 2008. That wasn't too long ago. At that time we were making the shift into 2.0, and would you believe that I didn't learn anything about incorporating 1.0 tools?!?! Fortunately I feel comfortable with technology and I do embrace it, and our tech department is also very eager to help us learn. It really needs to be a movement from within to get on our administrators and have them get on their superiors to make sure we are being taught with the times. We need to stop turning a blind eye to what is already years ahead of us. How far will schools get behind? How long until school is no longer the driving force for education? Or is our global connection, the web, our new school system?

Webucation Age

Often times things come at a price. School districts spend millions on bettering instructional tools every year. Many teachers never even use them, or don't know how, or don't find them useful. Web 2.0 is giving educators countless FREE resources that can change the face of their instruction, and change the kind and quality of student work. Larry Ferlazzo's Blog provides countless web 2.0 tools for educators. Many of them are free, or offer a free version that you can then purchase upgrades for. It is worth checking them out. If you find one you like that isn't free, I bet you can find one you like that is free. Tweet about it maybe and watch what flocks your way. They always say that if you know the right people you can get anything...well now you have the world at your fingertips so start making your personal learning network.

A Wall-e Future

Are we going to be spending so much time in our own virtual worlds that we will start to neglect our real world? It is so easy to create an avatar or Mii to our liking, but what about our bodies? We can hide behind our virtual identity in our virtual worlds, but what happens when we have to physically go and be part of a discussion? Is our future one of personal isolation with virtual collaboration? Will our planet go to shambles because we are spending all of our time in a virtual society? I love the world of the web, but I also enjoy getting out once and a while and having that actual face time with the world.

Student Blogs

Giving the students a chance to express themselves on the internet is a good idea. Sometimes just knowing you have an audience can make you perform better. Just the idea of more than a teacher reading your response can be motivating. My students love to share their responses to the daily questions I ask them. I think it would be interesting to have my students answer these questions in their own blog, and then have their peers respond to them. The hurdle will be having continued laptop access everyday to do this...or do we just not do it everyday??

An Isolated Collaboration

Finally we can create an environment and all have a hand in it...but never meet one another. Wiki's, google docs, blogging, and other web 2.0 "steroids" are creating a convienent world of click to touch screen users. I am on board for using web 2.0 tools in the classroom, and many businesses are on this train and staying on it. The way of the world is the web. Anything is possible, so the reality may be that one day we will do another cycle of times. But from the looks of things, the tech savvy future is here, and by the time you read this blog, a new technology has been invented.