21apples

Education and Web 2.0

Posted by arvind s grover Thu, 02 Mar 2006 22:18:48 GMT

In case you haven’t noticed, the world wide web has changed substantially in the last few years. I am not talking about the number of websites, as those have been increasing since the web started. I am talking about two major facors: Blogs and the Web 2.0 movement – the 2.0 is referring to a new generation of websites, those the act less like standard websites, and more like programs on your computer. Try the example that lets you drag items into a box on the page. This was not possible a couple years back.

What does this new web mean for educators? Here is how it has impacted my life:

Student E-Mails with Teachers

Posted by arvind s grover Wed, 01 Mar 2006 21:10:02 GMT

I came across a post Email and the Student-Teacher Relationship by Professor Tyler Williams that discusses a New York Times article on students e-mailing teachers (you have to pay to read the whole thing). The professors in the article are highly critical of the informal language and conversation used by students. This is a tough question for me. Do we encourage students to communicate with us (teachers) in a way that is natural for them, or a way that is natural for us? When they move on to be bosses in their own world, will e-mail look the same as we expect it to?

My aunt from England e-mails me very formal e-mails with proper salutations, signatures and punctuation. While my 22 year old brother is all lower case, “U for “you,” and “R” for “are.” Is one more valid? Is one more professional? Definitely a difference, but not sure how substantial it is. Should professors be ok with receiving any e-mail that is intelligible, or does format matter? I think many would argue that verbal communication has standards and so must electronic communication.

Even John Stewart is on MySpace

Posted by arvind s grover Sun, 19 Feb 2006 17:34:00 GMT

myspace

MySpace is getting more attention than ever. First it was the students, then it was the educational technologists (1, 2, 3), then the cyber-safety teams (1, 2), then the newspapers (1, 2, 3) and now onto The Daily Show with John Stewart (link to video). On their Trendspotting segment, Demetri covers MySpace from a satirical perspective. A nice change of page from the serious and stern looks we have been getting from the mainstream media.

No one has covered an educational social-networking use that I have seen yet. Anyone have some postive articles we could read?

Technorati Tags: article, blog, education, Google, Google, John Stewart, literacy, media, MySpace, resources, review, safety, The Daily Show, web

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Free Wikis for Schools

Posted by arvind s grover Wed, 08 Feb 2006 13:47:00 GMT

I have been experimenting with a wiki for this site, and have really been impressed with Wikispaces as an option. My main problem is I don’t think I have the content for this blog, and a wiki. Most of my wiki contributions these days are to the School Computing Wiki which I highly recommend to any educators out there.

I just saw an announcement that Wikispaces is offering free wiki hosting for K-12 teachers/schools. They provide a great service, and the price couldn’t be better. They allow public or private wikis, which is important to many schools for student privacy. Set up an account and try it, it’s free.

Over the last few months, some of the most gratifying feedback we’ve received has been from teachers telling us how valuable Wikispaces has been to them. Some of the teachers we’ve been talking to are clearly pretty special. They would do great things with or without online tools but it’s also clear that we can help.

At Wikispaces we believe in simple tools that are easy to adopt and use. Teachers have been telling us that there is great value in tools that allow students to easily work together and contribute to class. And they love tools that help them monitor and interact with students as they work.

Teachers are important and we want to help them. That’s why we’re making Wikispaces free, and advertising free, for use in K-12 education.

Technorati Tags: education, free, hosting, teachers, wiki,

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