Web 2.0

Web 2.0 applications have definitely changed the way we interact with technology. Tim O’Rielly describes web 2.0 as a platform for a host of commercial, entertainment, and learning applications (p.299). Web 2.0 affords the use of lightweight, readily accessible, and low-cost learning applications and tools (p.304). They have had a great impact in education especially in high education and e-learning settings. One example of this is this course where we have been working with web 2.0 applications through the whole semester. All these applications are very interesting to me but my favorites so far have been blogging, wikis, Zoho,  screencating, and Google docs.

Perhaps my favorite is blogging because is tool that allows people to be creative and share with other their ideas. Terry Anderson says that “web 2.0 applications generally sit outside the confines of institutionally protected spaces, thus allowing input, purview, critique, and comment by others in addition to the teacher and those enrolled in the course” (p. 300). I think that one of the powerful benefits of the blog is that other people can give you feedback of your work or ideas by critiquing or makings comments in your blogs. I love the idea of using blogging with colleagues to share information that you find interesting and have their opinions and also using your blog as a platform for your classroom where you share relevant information of the course.

 The BECTA said: “web 2.0 can facilitate more collaborative ways of working, community creation, dialogue and knowledge sharing” (p.301). I think this sentence describes my other favorite application: Google doc. Google doc (Google drive) is a great tool for collaborating and save information online (clouding computing). This app is perfect for group assignments because you can work with different types of documents. You can access to it from anywhere anytime and everyone can work on a document at the same time which is very convenient. Web 2.0 tools utilize individuals and group contributions to create value (p.300). 

Free Online Apps

Office suits

Zoho

I would recommend to my school and coworkers to use this online application. Zoho offers online business, productivity and collaboration applications. Some of its applications are documents, presentations, spreadsheets, wikis, music, videos, project manager,email, calendar, etc. You can also upload Google docs and other Google apps to Zoho which is very convenient if you are a Google user like me. Zoho can be used in your mobile devices, you just have to download the application. I think this a great tool for collaboration because you can share whatever you create and you can have a meeting, discussion or chatting online in real time.

Image Editing

PicMonkey

I would recommend PicMonkey to my colleagues or anybody. PicMonkey is a free online photo editor. It is very easy to use and it has a lot of interesting features like make a collage, effects, texture, text, frame, theme, and even makeup effects. You cal also have the upgrade version for more features. You don't need to register to use it or download it. After editing your photo, you can save it or share it by email, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and others.

I played a little bit wit it. Here there is an example of what you can do with it.So, here the before and after:

Website

I love the idea of websites because it can be a very useful free resource. I had never used google sites before, but it is not that difficult. I decided to created a resource website for teachers. The purpose to of this website is to provide a list of useful website for teaching. I created links to those websites and a short description of them. I also added a calendar, a tweeter fallow bottom, and you tube news. I created a teaching resource webpage and a web 2.0 webpage.

Click to see my website Here

Concept Map

I created a concept map with the classification of the pronouns. I would use this concept map for explaining the classification of the pronouns with examples of them. This can be very useful to summarize the pronouns lesson and could help to students understanding of pronouns.

Screencasting

Screencasting

Back in my country I am a teacher. I love have students working in small groups because it is a very effective way to teach big classes like mines. One of the major benefits is the interaction and cooperation among students. But sometime when I assign group projects, most students complain that they don’t have the time to meet because everyone is too busy or they live far away from each other. Another problem that I face in my classes is when we have presentation. Most of the time my students work on PowerPoint and the day of the presentation it just doesn't work or they forget their UBS at home. So I decided to use Jing to do a tutorial of Google Drive.

With Google Drive, students won’t have the excuse of lack of time for working in a group projects because it allows people to share and edit documents from wherever. Also they won’t need any physical device to save their files. Google Drive works like a cloud service. You only need a connection to the internet. This application has a lot of features that can be very useful for teaching or learning. In order to make my tutorial, I used Jing. It takes screenshots, captures an image of what you see on your computer screen, and record screen casts up to 5 minutes of onscreen video. So I just installed Jing in my pc and I made up the tutorial of Google drive.

Google Maps for Teaching

Ver Colonial Zone en un mapa más grande

For my lesson of giving directions in my language class, I would make my students to create their own google maps. The idea is very simple but could be very useful for this purpose. Students would create a map of their community or a place they like and will highlight the place marks they find interesting. Then they will add line between the locations. These lines could be for walking routes as well as car routes. After they create their maps, they will make a presentation of it in class. They could use power point or prezi. In their presentation, they will use their maps to give directions. This will allow them to use the lesson vocabulary in a real environment.

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