Web+2.0

I have chosen 5 different Web 2.0 tools that I think would be useful in the classroom. These 5 tools are: Twiducate, Slideshare, Hot Potatoes, Chart Editor, and Wolfram Alpha. All of these have different features that would be useful in the classroom. First, Twiducate is the Twitter for teachers and students, and can be a “social” network for all people in the class. The teacher can create an online community of everyone in the classroom. This way, the students can talk to one another (and the teacher) about homework questions, questions about an upcoming test, or if a student is sick/absent, they can ask what they missed. The teacher can also help out by answering the questions, or the students can hold their own discussions. Second, Slideshare is a resource for sharing PowerPoint presentations or any other documents. After going through this site, I found a bunch of really interesting PowerPoint presentations, such as one on the Boulder fire and how social media exposed the fire. So basically, the article discussed the impact of social media on news. I also found an article about the purpose of research for educational purposes. I found this to be very informative. So, students can use this site to get information or research or they can even publish their own slideshows. Third, Hot Potatoes is a program for quizzes. It contains 6 applications, including multiple-choice, short answer, jumbled sentence, crossword, matching/ordering, and gap filling exercises. After downloading and looking at this program for a bit, I think it’s a great way to create your own quizzes using one of the applications above. The quizzes can be used as a good way for students to “test” their knowledge and get immediate feedback as to what they know and what they should study more of. Fourth, Chart Gizmo is a nice program that allows for chart and graph making. It’s fairly easy to use, you type in the data that you want to display, and the kind of chart that you want to use, and label the axis and it graphs the information for you. I think this program is pretty versatile and can be used for a variety of school subjects. It can show stand-alone statistics or it can do comparisons of two different sets of data. Fifth, Wolfram Alpha is a good program that you can type in the question and it gives you the answer. The nice part of this application is that it can be used for any subject, including math, science, history, computer science, and even music. You just type the question in the box, and if it’s a mathematical question, there are even examples so you know to type something in correctly. For example, if you are trying to find the integral of a number, but aren’t sure how to input it in the computer, hit the examples button, and go to the specific subject and it will tell you how to type it in (i.e. integrate x^2 sin^3 x dx). I believe that I can use all of these in my classroom. Some may be more useful, at times, than others, but I think they will all have their own unique applications. As for Twiducate, I would like to set up a site for each of my classes. I would like students to be able to help one another and ask questions about a homework assignment. Many times, students aren’t all able to physically get together or the times when people study aren’t the same, but with this program, students can “talk” to each other and get help while being at their own homes. Additionally, I would like to help them also. They can ask me questions, or I can see the discussions that students are having and make sure they are on the right track. Many times, if students are studying together, they may not know how to do something or may not be on the right track. This way, I can be sure they are and help them if they are not. Also, if a student is absent, they can still be aware of what they missed by getting their assignments and asking me or the other students what they missed. As for Slideshare, I think would be a great resource for me to post PowerPoint presentations on what we did in class. I could also post examples of similar questions to homework or test questions. I can also post the solutions to homework and test questions (so the students can be sure they know the correct answers). Since I will be teaching math, it might be more helpful to “see” how the work is done and how the problem was figured out, and all the steps involved. Additionally, I have thought about having students create math posters and doing a math presentation (a little different from traditional math), but the students could post their presentations for everyone to see. As for Hot Potatoes, I would like to create “quizzes” that the students can use as practice. Leading up to the test, I can create “sample” questions of what will be on the test and the students can use this to test their knowledge and see what they know or what they should study more. Since the students get immediate feedback, they will know what they need to work on. The downfall to this program is that it may not be robust enough for a math class, but I think it would still be a good resource to assist with studying and figuring out where the students’ knowledge is weak. As for Chart Gizmo, I think this would be a great resource to help students create graphs and charts. Many times in math (and in other subjects, so it can be used in other classes, too), it is easy to get bogged down by the numbers and it’s not always clear what you are trying to figure out or what message the numbers are trying to convey. This program can make it more “visual.” For example, if we are working with fractions, we can use the pie chart (or any chart) to look at “pieces” of the information we are trying to figure out. Also, having the visual aids might make the information more clear and help the students to learn what we are really trying to learn. As for Wolfram Alpha, I think this would be a great tool for helping students to check their work. I think it would be important to make sure that students aren’t using this website to cheat (although the use of the calculators poses the same problem). Although, the process that the website shows to solve a problem (such as for the integral example from above) may not be exactly how we do it in class, so the students will still have to know how to do the work. But it would be a great resource for students to make sure their answers are correct. And if it is not correct, they can go back and find their mistake and correct their work. Again, the immediate feedback helps the students to figure out what they need to do to improve their learning in and can help them to work in the right direction. In summary, I think there are quite a few Web 2.0 tools that would be great for my classroom. They include Twiducate, Slideshare, Hot Potatoes, Chart Gizmo, and Wolfram Alpha. They all do different things, but combined, I think they can really enhance the classroom experience. I think the common thread that all of these websites have in common, is giving students immediate feedback and help to assist them in their learning.