Web 2.0 Tools

When you first started your career in education, did you ever dream of having a plethora of resources to help engage your students in the content? How about tools to challenge the high flyers? What about something to help out a struggling student? If you are involved in education today, a teacher, an administrator, counselor, and yes, even parents, you have more tools at your fingertips (literally) than you can ever learn, and new ones popping up everyday. While they may not look like the resources you're used to, they're out there if you are willing to look for them. They're called Web 2.0 tools and they are AMAZING!

My position has changed this year and being in the classroom only one hour a day has allowed me the time to dive into more Web 2.0 tools and discover ways for teachers to integrate them into their own classrooms. This is what I love most about my new technology position! This past week I focused on Thinglink. I've been hearing about it, seeing tweets about it, but just needed to sit down and jump in.  And I am so glad I did.

First thing when I signed up I started looking for people I knew out there and what they had done. Mickie Mueller (@mickie_mueller) is the Tech Integration Specialist at Norfolk Public Schools in Norfolk, NE. She is my idol! I love seeing what she's been up to, what she's tweeting about and blogging about, so I looked her up. I found several examples by her (Nebraska History was my favorite) and got motivated.  Because we were starting simulations in my accounting classes, I decided to take the opportunity to use a picture I'd taken of the packet and Thinglink it.

I have 3 different accounting classes and some independent study students. All will be working on the packet, but some will miss the class lecture/instructions. I created this picture with audio clips I created in Sound Cloud (another Web 2.0 tool) to give the students information on the pieces of their packet. While we discussed this in class, those that were gone can have the information, or go back later and listen if they have forgotten. Now keep in mind this is my first attempt at Thinglink. I was excited about what I had done (and it really was easy to do), but wouldn't be blue ribbon quality if I were trying to convince a teacher to try it.

Now take this tool and flip it around. How can a student use this technology to complete a project or assignment and show learned content? I tried to look at other content areas and apply this. For instance, a student in a math class could take a picture of a completed math problem, all the steps written out, and add descriptions or links to the steps he took, applying what he knows to possibly help explain the process to another student (learn by teaching to another).  In a history class, students could take battle field picture, and dividing it into sections, critique the strategies used by the commanders, try to interpret what strategy they might have had that led to that decision, devise or construct alternate attacks or plans that could have been carried out.  And if students took opposing sides of a conflict, they could anticipate an alternate ending to the battle based on changes they put into place. 

No matter what level of thinking on Bloom's a teacher expects in the outcome, Thinglink would allow students the creativity to do that, as well as research and integrate other technologies, compare and contrast written sources and correctly cite them.