DG2_Web2.0

**"The term "Web 2.0" is commonly associated with web applications that facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web. A Web 2.0 site allows its users to interact with each other as contributers to the website's content, in contrast to websites where users are limited to the passive viewing of information that is provided to them. Examples of Web 2.0 include web-based communities, hosted services, web applications, social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs, mashups, and folsonomies."** //(source:// [|//www.wikipedia.org//]//, search term: **Web 2.0**).//

**__My Web 2.0 Creations:__**

Courtesy of [|www.lovelycharts.com], this would be my new best friend staring out as a beninning teacher; a seating chart coordinator for my class! I tend to get over-excited when I want to arrange furniture, but I don't always have ideas that fit the space, so I get frustrated! Once I got the layout of my classroom diagramed per square foot at the beginning of the year (there is a handy graph pape grid to work with), I could figure out how much space each arrangement would use, and avoid wasting time and energy!

I also created an Avatar of myself as you can see, using [|www.mywebface.com]. Or click the link below to be transported to a digital creation of me! Link to this photo: @http://home.mywebface.com/faces/29/58/87/19788592.jpg

**__Web 2.0 Reviews:__** [|www.readwritethink.org] ReadWriteThink is an interactive website designed primarily for language arts students, parents of students, and educators. There are many tools to use that are organized very well by grade level. There are free lessons for teachers, professional development areas, and lots of printouts to use in the classroom. This site is safe to use in schools and is run by highly qualified educators or other experts.

[|www.edmoto.com] Instead of giving your students an email account, you can use edmoto. It is a safe, personalized online classroom environment that is similar to Blackboard or other forms of group computing. It can be used to create a social learning environment, and is a more effective method of expression for some students who are shy or are unable to speak in public due to absence or other physical limitations. There are many "safe" features about this site, but I would encourage parent involvement and give students a detailed set of rules and instructions in order to use this. I think it could be appropriate for 6th-12th grade use.

www.buildyourwildself.com This site, from the New York Zoos and Aquariums, is fun and can be very personalized. The user chooses several animal and human body parts and combines them into a crazy human-like animal. It would be really useful for elementary students who are learning about different animals and their body parts, habitats, etc. and it is funny, so students would enjoy the time they work with this site. It is educational because each part you choose for "yourself" as you are creating describes what that body part would do and also what animal it comes from, where they live, etc. It also uses human-like bodies that can be male or female, and with skin colors you can select to be appropriate for all ethnicities. I think science classes could use this in late elementary grades. The only critique I have is that I didn't locate a place to publish or share this with anyone, only a button to click if I wanted email the image to a friend. It appears to be student-safe and very easy to use.

www.glogster.com This website was pretty fun to use and geared towards tweens and teens. There is a free option to just test out what glogster can do, but in Ben's class we learned how much can be done with the educator version. Student accounts can be created to customize your experience and make it safer for use in school. Videos, photos, sound clips, and text can be added to make a personalized bulletin board.

www.lovelycharts.com I think this has SO many useful educational applications. Above, I have created just one thing that would be great for teachers; a seating chart creator. It is simple to use, and also very adaptable for a variety of ethnicity/gender accomodations to truly personalize this feature for whatever you use it for! I think if I were using this in an interactive online classroom, it would be perfect to upload files of the creations I made. Students would enjoy making things such as sports diagrams, game instructions, and group organizations. Besides people applications, you can make flow charts, diagrams, or use other symbols to personally create a custom "spreadsheet" quickly and for free. I love this tool and I'm going to use it at work to lay out our garden center, too!

[|www.eduplace.com/graphicorganizer/] Eduplace.com is a site that offers free printables of all kinds. There are pdf files of organizational or brainstorming charts, several tables, and clocks to help students learn to tell time. Educators don't need special permission to print these pages for school use. Several other helpful resources are available if you log in, including online textbooks, eLibrary, and more. I think this site gives teachers a list of tools that could help students brainstorm more ideas or begin work if they become stuck while working. The free printables are available without logging in, which I think makes this site more user-friendly than some others.

[|www.bighugelabs.com] BigHugeLabs is a website that allows the user to upload a photo or group of photos and edit them into amazing art work. This would be great to document the steps of an experiment in a science class, useful for sporting and extra curricular events, and neat to display a grouping of students completing an assignment or just about anything else. Make a free printable motivational poster, awards or certificates, name badge, gift card, cartoon yourself, and edit photos to create unique pop art! I would utilize this at staff functions, in advisory groups, at the end of a unit, theatrical awards, and just about everything else that could use a photo and be customized to be extra special!

[|www.coolcatteacher.blogspot.com] This is a blog that has everything to do with teaching using web 2.0. Vicki, the creator has won numerous awards regarding her top-notch use of the web for a variety of classroom applications. She blogs frequently about her use of technoogy to increase student interest in her class. I would read this blog from time to time, or view the history when I have a specific question or am interested to see what other people have used technology for in their own classrooms. For me, there is a little bit too much information here, but I could see adding her to my RSS feed and skimming through the important or relevent content.

[|www.thinkfinity.org/?q=games-and-tools] Think Infinity is a site for school and after school work time. It is great for parent-child or student-teacher collaboration. There are tools to create an essay outline, ready-made games to play, construct-a-word, comic creator, and a lot more! I think a variety of grade levels from about 3rd-12th would find certain areas of this site fun or educational (or both). The site claims resources for Kindergarten and up, so I think I would use discression about this and find out if the Kindergartener you are working with would benefit from using this or not. Regardelss of the individual students you may have, this is a good tool to keep under your belt that may one day help something "click" for a student. There are also videos, interactives, audio clips, and lesson plans. Because there is so much information available and so many resources, I would recommend that a teacher or parent supervises a student using this site to maximize the use value. It would be great to direct students to a specific activity (example: Read and use "x" terms found in the Interactive Geometry Dictionary listed for use in grades 3-8, and show an example of their meaning).

www.blabberize.com Using blabberize.com, you can take a photo that you find in a public domain source or a personal photo you have on file and create moving lips with your own voice-overs. Besides being hilarious, it would be fun to use this in a middle school setting to illustrate a scientific concept, or talk about a particularily interesting event in history using George Washington's photo, for example. I think K-12 would enjoy watching teacher-created blabbers so it could be a great attention-getter before class starts but really 4th-12th grade students could create their own version. This is pretty funny and would be educational if you created it to be, as well as captivating and memorable.

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