ConnectedTalk

For the past several months I have spent time talking and introducing Web 2.0 applications to teachers and administrators in my district. I began with only a few Google docs, Pageflakes, Boxnet as a starting point and had the opportunity to find teachers willing to try using them in their classrooms. Students must have the opportunity to access the internet find, edit, and manage digital information. They must be given the tools they need to construct new knowledge from digital resources; still images, video, audio, text, learn to access and evaluate information, join online communities and engage in collaborative networks as part of their education. We all know this is how they interact outside of the school day. It is time to bring these valuable collaborative spaces into the classroom. This summer I will be working with teachers to expose them to the possibilities of collaborative classroom projects using wikis, blogs, podcasting.
Has anyone or is anyone using wikis and blogs in their classrooms? If so would you mind sharing the grade and send a link to your classroom site? I would love to have examples to show this summer during the staff development sessions.

I attended a two day workshop on Web 2.0 for the classroom, learning what opportunities and online tools are available and how to use them in our learning. We also had conversations centered on School 2.0, what the future of learning will look like, how the two fit together and what value they have in terms of allowing all of us to have a voice. The conference took place in Philadelphia at the Science and Leadership Academy with Will Richardson. The conversations have been valuable to understand who in the educational community are using these tools now, how classrooms are connecting and offering opportunities for students to begin communicating and collaborating with other schools. I have had the pleasure of meeting a wonderful group of people who are taking part in moving their students forward with the use of Web 2.0 tools and also looking at the future of our schools, how kids learn and how we teach. The blogs I have been reading stimulate very thought provoking conversations about our students, our schools, and how to best prepare our children for positions in the world we can only imagine. One of the things Will spoke of was the power of blogging, giving each of us a voice in the world, this is my attempt at finding my voice. I hope to use this space to share ideas, thoughts, successes and challenges and to expand my learning day in and day out.