Exploring Web 2.0

Exploring Web 2.0
Facilitator: Michael Krauss

Daily Assignments

Week 1
Day 1|Day 2|Day 3|Day 4|Day 5

means that the task is not required for overseas teachers and others enrolled for professional development hours.
is a link to a tutorial. Click the arrow if you would like to see the tutorial.

WEEK 1
Exploring Web 2.0 Concepts, Getting Started with Web 2.0 Tools

DAY 3
Web 2.0 Concepts and Blogging

TASK 1: Watch 1 or more of the following videos to learn more about Web 2.0 concepts: The Machine is Us/ing Us (Wesch), A Vision of Students Today,(Wesch), Web 2.0 and Language Learning. (Stanley), and Networked Student (Drexler) (Come back to the "Networked Student" video by Drexler at the end of the course and see how much more sense it makes to you!).

TASK 2: Go to Our Ning. Reply to my message, "Your Reaction to Videos on Web 2.0."

TASK 3: Gain a foundation on blogging and its use in education by exploring the following resources:

Read "Blogging for ELT" (Graham Stanley) (Blogging basics and educational uses)

Watch the Common Craft video, "Blogs in Plain English" (LeFever)

Look at this sample of student blogs from Michael's class. (Blogs for student writing: portfolios).

Go to Our Ning. Click on the "My Page" tab. Click on "My Blog." Click on "Add Blog Post." Write approximately 150 words on how you might use blogging in your classroom teaching or professional development. Would you use a "tutor blog?" "class blog?" "learning blog?" something different? Tell us why.

Teacher Association Members - For those who belong to a professional teachers association, do you see a role for blogging within your organization? Explain.

Classroom teachers - Do you see a role for blogging for your students? for your fellow teachers? Explain.

ACCESS teachers (applies only to some of our out-of-country teachers) - do you see blogging as useful in your classrooms?

Experiment with the formatting tools provided in your Ning blog. You might also experiment with adding a photo or Web links in your blog post (check the toolbar on your Blog page for those features). Add appropriate tags (words, separated by commas that describe your blog post), and click "Preview." When you are ready, click "Publish" and you're done! You'll see links to your classmates' blog posts by clicking on the "Main" tab of Our Ning. Please add a comment to one or more of your classmates' blog postings.

TASK 4: Accept my invitation to join a group within Our Ning. What do you do when you have a very large class of students and you want to help them get to know each other and to have more individual practice learning new concepts and language? You put them into groups, right? That is what we are doing too! After you accept my invitation and join your Ning group, your job is to:

Communicate with your group mates and decide on a topic that you'd like to discuss during the next three weeks. Create a Forum topic within your group so you can exchange ideas.

Note: Try to complete this task by the end of Week 1

Additional Information/Resources:

Downloading videos

If you want to download YouTube videos so you can play them offline on your computer, use the Savevid Web site. To make it even more convenient, when you are at th Savevid Web site, look for the "Toolbox" on the right side of the page. You can drag the "Save Video" button to your browser toolbar and click it any time you want to download streaming video.

Even more powerful video downloading capability with Firefox: Some sites that display video are not accepted bySavevid. Video Download Helper Firefox extension enables your to download video from a very wide-ranging list of sites.

Blogging has become an integral part of the lives of U.S. high school and university students, so much so that some universities are hiring their own students to blog on the schools' admissions Web page in order to attract prospective students. The blogs and comments are unedited and describe campus life from the bloggers' point of view. See M.I.T. Taking Student Blogs to Nth Degree.

Does research show that blogging can improve students writing? Yes! And see examples of how blogging can be used effectively across the curriculum in "The Prose (and a Few Cons too) of Blogging."

What if I want to set up an email exchange, but I want it ad-free, free of charge, with teacher controls, and capable of use globally? Then try ePals and their SchoolMail program. The benefits of ePals and SchoolMail are explained in the article, " E-Palling Around" in the November, 2008 issue of THE Journal (Technology Horizons in Education.

We are going to be blogging by using the blog feature within Ning. There are many other free blogging services. Blogger.com is owned by Google. LiveJournal is the most popular blogging service in Russia. Edublogs is a service that is used by many in the education community and here are 10 ideas on using Edublogs (or any blogs) in education. All these services are free of charge.

Return to top.

WEEK 1
Exploring Web 2.0 Concepts, Getting Started with Web 2.0 Tools

DAY 4
Web 2.0 Report, Getting Started with Wikis (using Google Sites)

TASK 1: Watch the Common Craft video, "Wikis in Plain English."

TASK 2: Sign up for a Google Account. This will allow you to use many Google tools, with one common login and password, during our course. You will receive an account verification by email. Click the link in your email to verify your account.

NOTE: If you already have a Google Account, you do not need to sign up again. (If you have a Gmail account, you already have a Google Account and do not need to sign up again).

NOTE: You do not need to sign up for a Gmail account when you get your Google Account.

Not sure if you have a Google Account or need more help? Check here.

TASK 3: Visit Google Sites and watch the video tour. This free Web site creation tools allows you to build Web pages, allow them to be edited by others (i.e. make them Wiki pages), upload files and more. This is a great tool for teachers who want to build their own Web site and everything is stored on Google's server. We will use this site to have some Wiki pages available to use during our course.

TASK 4: You will receive an email invitation from me to join our Google Sites Wiki. Please click the link in the email to join. Visit Our Wiki and begin Web 2.0 collaboration! Please feel free during the course to continue this dialogue.

NOTE: If you have a Gmail account, but you are not using it to receive my emails in this course, contact me. I will need to send your invitation to your Gmail address (if that is the address you associated with your Google Account).

You have three choices (you can complete more than one if you want!)

Click on the "Teaching Ideas" link. Read the instructions there, look at the teaching idea I posted, and then post a teaching idea of your own. (Does not have to be a computer-related teaching idea).

Click on the "Teacher Associations link." Share your ideas on what makes a TA effective and how membership can be increased.

Click on the "ACCESS teachers (and all other classroom teachers)" link. ACCESS and all other classroom teachers, share your ideas on how students, distant from each other, can collaborate and share their work, even if their classrooms have only one Internet connected computer.

By the way, you are welcome to include links to Web sites or to insert images into your Wiki post.

TASK 5: Go to the BECTA report and publications page. Scroll down to Report 1: "Web 2.0 Technologies for Learning:The current landscape - opportunities, challenges and tensions (May 2008)." In M.S. Word, choose "Online Layout" from the "View" menu for most effective reading. Read the Executive Summary (pp. 1-6 only). This report is the best I've found about Web 2.0, it's potential and challenges for educational use. It also includes links to the most current Web 2.0 tools (as of May 2008) and categorizes them efficiently. Next week, we will take a shot at using Wiki collaboration to jigsaw our knowledge of the entire report!

Additional Information/Resources:

Note: Google has announced the release of Google Apps Education Edition, an ad-free version of Gmail. Google Docs, Google Sites, and their integrated tools. The hosted service, which features communication and collaboration tools such as e-mail, document sharing, group calendars, and websites is available at no cost to all K-12 schools and districts.

There are a number of free Wiki building resources available. For those of you, anywhere in the world, who are teaching in K-12 (primary or secondary education), see this offer from wikispaces. As of Sept. 2008, wikispaces is providing an unlimited number of free Wikis to the first 250,000 K-12 teachers who apply. These Wikis are ad free, privacy enabled, unlimited users. Normally this is a $50 per year resource.

Visit the Simple English Wikipedia - This resource only uses simple English words and grammar. The Simple English Wikipedia is for everyone! That includes children and adults who are learning English.

Return to top.

WEEK 1
Exploring Web 2.0 Concepts, Getting Started with Web 2.0 Tools

DAY 5
Classroom Uses of Web 2.0 and Social Bookmarking (Delicious)

TASK 1: Watch the Common Craft video, "Social Bookmarking in Plain English."

TASK 2: Read Getting Started at Delicious.com.

TASK 3: Open an account at Delicious.com and create browser buttons. Yahoo now owns Delicious. If you have a Yahoo ID (all those with Yahoo mail already have one), you simply sign in. For those who don't, you will be asked to create a Yahoo ID in order to use Delicious. During the registration process, be sure that you add the browser buttons. After installing buttons, whenever you are at a site that you want to save to your Delicious account, you just click the button, a window opens, and zip zap you can save that Web site to your Delicious account. Please view the tutorial for this lesson to see how to register and install the browser buttons.
Note: You also have the option of importing all your existing bookmarks into Delicious when you register. If you have an organized and useful set of bookmarks, it would make sense to import them. However, you can skip that step and import your bookmarks later if you wish.

TASK 4: Post a bookmark to your Delicious account with our class tag: Now that you have created your Delicious account, go to any Web page that you would like to share with our group. Using your Delicious button on your Navigation Bar, save the Web site to your Delicious account. Add tags. NOTE: Every time you save a bookmark to Delicious during this course, add the following tag: exploringweb20february2010
This will allow us to see all the bookmarks created for our course. You can see our Delicious bookmarks collected during the course here or at the "Our Delicious Bookmarks" link on the Course Home page.

TASK 5: Read The Best Web 2.0 Applications for ESL/EFL Learners - 2007 (Ferlazzo). This will end the week with a very hands-on article by an ESL classroom teacher who uses technology in innovative ways. If you like this article, here are more from Ferlazzo.

TASK 6: Week 1 Quiz and Status Check: Answer the quiz questions based on your readings, videos and experience in Week 1. Also complete the Status Check question to let me know how you are doing and questions you might have.

TASK 7: Chart your progress for the week! Follow these steps:

Go to the Grading Grid 1 or Grading Grid 2. Check at the very bottom of the page to find "Edit this page (if you have permission)" Click the link. If you see the editing toolbar, you are already signed in and you can begin.

Find your name (or participant number if you are taking the course for academic credit) on the Grading Grid.

Click in the boxes under the appropriate tasks. Fill in "OK" for tasks completed. Fill in "O" for those not done. You can move from column to column with the "Tab" key. Press the Return or Enter key on your keyboard when you are done.

From the "File" menu, choose "Save and Close."

Note: The grid will not show the updated information for at least 5 minutes, so don't worry if you don't see your changes.

That's it! Thanks so much for recording your progress. Keep up the good work!

Additional Information/Resources:

Who first used the phrase "Web 2.0" in the first place? Read the 2005 article by Tim O'Reilly that coins the phrase and lays out the concepts. Listen to an NPR (National Public Radio) Science Friday interview with Tim O'Reilly on the status of social media and future of computing.

Teaching Social Software with Social Software. Ulises Mejias examines how social software (information and communications technologies that facilitate the collaboration and exchange of ideas) enables students to participate in distributed research, an approach to learning in which knowledge is collectively constructed and shared. You'll have to register for the Journal of Online Education, but it is free.

Go to Daily Assignments - Week 2

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Updated: 2/3/10

WEEK 1	Exploring Web 2.0 Concepts, Getting Started with Web 2.0 Tools
DAY 3	Web 2.0 Concepts and Blogging
	TASK 1: Watch 1 or more of the following videos to learn more about Web 2.0 concepts: The Machine is Us/ing Us (Wesch), A Vision of Students Today,(Wesch), Web 2.0 and Language Learning. (Stanley), and Networked Student (Drexler) (Come back to the "Networked Student" video by Drexler at the end of the course and see how much more sense it makes to you!). TASK 2: Go to Our Ning. Reply to my message, "Your Reaction to Videos on Web 2.0." TASK 3: Gain a foundation on blogging and its use in education by exploring the following resources: Read "Blogging for ELT" (Graham Stanley) (Blogging basics and educational uses) Watch the Common Craft video, "Blogs in Plain English" (LeFever) Look at this sample of student blogs from Michael's class. (Blogs for student writing: portfolios). Go to Our Ning. Click on the "My Page" tab. Click on "My Blog." Click on "Add Blog Post." Write approximately 150 words on how you might use blogging in your classroom teaching or professional development. Would you use a "tutor blog?" "class blog?" "learning blog?" something different? Tell us why. Teacher Association Members - For those who belong to a professional teachers association, do you see a role for blogging within your organization? Explain. Classroom teachers - Do you see a role for blogging for your students? for your fellow teachers? Explain. ACCESS teachers (applies only to some of our out-of-country teachers) - do you see blogging as useful in your classrooms? Experiment with the formatting tools provided in your Ning blog. You might also experiment with adding a photo or Web links in your blog post (check the toolbar on your Blog page for those features). Add appropriate tags (words, separated by commas that describe your blog post), and click "Preview." When you are ready, click "Publish" and you're done! You'll see links to your classmates' blog posts by clicking on the "Main" tab of Our Ning. Please add a comment to one or more of your classmates' blog postings. TASK 4: Accept my invitation to join a group within Our Ning. What do you do when you have a very large class of students and you want to help them get to know each other and to have more individual practice learning new concepts and language? You put them into groups, right? That is what we are doing too! After you accept my invitation and join your Ning group, your job is to: Communicate with your group mates and decide on a topic that you'd like to discuss during the next three weeks. Create a Forum topic within your group so you can exchange ideas. Note: Try to complete this task by the end of Week 1
	Additional Information/Resources: Downloading videos If you want to download YouTube videos so you can play them offline on your computer, use the Savevid Web site. To make it even more convenient, when you are at th Savevid Web site, look for the "Toolbox" on the right side of the page. You can drag the "Save Video" button to your browser toolbar and click it any time you want to download streaming video. Even more powerful video downloading capability with Firefox: Some sites that display video are not accepted bySavevid. Video Download Helper Firefox extension enables your to download video from a very wide-ranging list of sites. Blogging has become an integral part of the lives of U.S. high school and university students, so much so that some universities are hiring their own students to blog on the schools' admissions Web page in order to attract prospective students. The blogs and comments are unedited and describe campus life from the bloggers' point of view. See M.I.T. Taking Student Blogs to Nth Degree. Does research show that blogging can improve students writing? Yes! And see examples of how blogging can be used effectively across the curriculum in "The Prose (and a Few Cons too) of Blogging." What if I want to set up an email exchange, but I want it ad-free, free of charge, with teacher controls, and capable of use globally? Then try ePals and their SchoolMail program. The benefits of ePals and SchoolMail are explained in the article, " E-Palling Around" in the November, 2008 issue of THE Journal (Technology Horizons in Education. We are going to be blogging by using the blog feature within Ning. There are many other free blogging services. Blogger.com is owned by Google. LiveJournal is the most popular blogging service in Russia. Edublogs is a service that is used by many in the education community and here are 10 ideas on using Edublogs (or any blogs) in education. All these services are free of charge.

WEEK 1	Exploring Web 2.0 Concepts, Getting Started with Web 2.0 Tools
DAY 4	Web 2.0 Report, Getting Started with Wikis (using Google Sites)
	TASK 1: Watch the Common Craft video, "Wikis in Plain English." TASK 2: Sign up for a Google Account. This will allow you to use many Google tools, with one common login and password, during our course. You will receive an account verification by email. Click the link in your email to verify your account. NOTE: If you already have a Google Account, you do not need to sign up again. (If you have a Gmail account, you already have a Google Account and do not need to sign up again). NOTE: You do not need to sign up for a Gmail account when you get your Google Account. Not sure if you have a Google Account or need more help? Check here. TASK 3: Visit Google Sites and watch the video tour. This free Web site creation tools allows you to build Web pages, allow them to be edited by others (i.e. make them Wiki pages), upload files and more. This is a great tool for teachers who want to build their own Web site and everything is stored on Google's server. We will use this site to have some Wiki pages available to use during our course. TASK 4: You will receive an email invitation from me to join our Google Sites Wiki. Please click the link in the email to join. Visit Our Wiki and begin Web 2.0 collaboration! Please feel free during the course to continue this dialogue. NOTE: If you have a Gmail account, but you are not using it to receive my emails in this course, contact me. I will need to send your invitation to your Gmail address (if that is the address you associated with your Google Account). You have three choices (you can complete more than one if you want!) Click on the "Teaching Ideas" link. Read the instructions there, look at the teaching idea I posted, and then post a teaching idea of your own. (Does not have to be a computer-related teaching idea). Click on the "Teacher Associations link." Share your ideas on what makes a TA effective and how membership can be increased. Click on the "ACCESS teachers (and all other classroom teachers)" link. ACCESS and all other classroom teachers, share your ideas on how students, distant from each other, can collaborate and share their work, even if their classrooms have only one Internet connected computer. By the way, you are welcome to include links to Web sites or to insert images into your Wiki post. TASK 5: Go to the BECTA report and publications page. Scroll down to Report 1: "Web 2.0 Technologies for Learning:The current landscape - opportunities, challenges and tensions (May 2008)." In M.S. Word, choose "Online Layout" from the "View" menu for most effective reading. Read the Executive Summary (pp. 1-6 only). This report is the best I've found about Web 2.0, it's potential and challenges for educational use. It also includes links to the most current Web 2.0 tools (as of May 2008) and categorizes them efficiently. Next week, we will take a shot at using Wiki collaboration to jigsaw our knowledge of the entire report!
	Additional Information/Resources: Note: Google has announced the release of Google Apps Education Edition, an ad-free version of Gmail. Google Docs, Google Sites, and their integrated tools. The hosted service, which features communication and collaboration tools such as e-mail, document sharing, group calendars, and websites is available at no cost to all K-12 schools and districts. There are a number of free Wiki building resources available. For those of you, anywhere in the world, who are teaching in K-12 (primary or secondary education), see this offer from wikispaces. As of Sept. 2008, wikispaces is providing an unlimited number of free Wikis to the first 250,000 K-12 teachers who apply. These Wikis are ad free, privacy enabled, unlimited users. Normally this is a $50 per year resource. Visit the Simple English Wikipedia - This resource only uses simple English words and grammar. The Simple English Wikipedia is for everyone! That includes children and adults who are learning English.

WEEK 1	Exploring Web 2.0 Concepts, Getting Started with Web 2.0 Tools
DAY 5	Classroom Uses of Web 2.0 and Social Bookmarking (Delicious)
	TASK 1: Watch the Common Craft video, "Social Bookmarking in Plain English." TASK 2: Read Getting Started at Delicious.com. TASK 3: Open an account at Delicious.com and create browser buttons. Yahoo now owns Delicious. If you have a Yahoo ID (all those with Yahoo mail already have one), you simply sign in. For those who don't, you will be asked to create a Yahoo ID in order to use Delicious. During the registration process, be sure that you add the browser buttons. After installing buttons, whenever you are at a site that you want to save to your Delicious account, you just click the button, a window opens, and zip zap you can save that Web site to your Delicious account. Please view the tutorial for this lesson to see how to register and install the browser buttons. Note: You also have the option of importing all your existing bookmarks into Delicious when you register. If you have an organized and useful set of bookmarks, it would make sense to import them. However, you can skip that step and import your bookmarks later if you wish. TASK 4: Post a bookmark to your Delicious account with our class tag: Now that you have created your Delicious account, go to any Web page that you would like to share with our group. Using your Delicious button on your Navigation Bar, save the Web site to your Delicious account. Add tags. NOTE: Every time you save a bookmark to Delicious during this course, add the following tag: exploringweb20february2010 This will allow us to see all the bookmarks created for our course. You can see our Delicious bookmarks collected during the course here or at the "Our Delicious Bookmarks" link on the Course Home page. TASK 5: Read The Best Web 2.0 Applications for ESL/EFL Learners - 2007 (Ferlazzo). This will end the week with a very hands-on article by an ESL classroom teacher who uses technology in innovative ways. If you like this article, here are more from Ferlazzo. TASK 6: Week 1 Quiz and Status Check: Answer the quiz questions based on your readings, videos and experience in Week 1. Also complete the Status Check question to let me know how you are doing and questions you might have. TASK 7: Chart your progress for the week! Follow these steps: Go to the Grading Grid 1 or Grading Grid 2. Check at the very bottom of the page to find "Edit this page (if you have permission)" Click the link. If you see the editing toolbar, you are already signed in and you can begin. Find your name (or participant number if you are taking the course for academic credit) on the Grading Grid. Click in the boxes under the appropriate tasks. Fill in "OK" for tasks completed. Fill in "O" for those not done. You can move from column to column with the "Tab" key. Press the Return or Enter key on your keyboard when you are done. From the "File" menu, choose "Save and Close." Note: The grid will not show the updated information for at least 5 minutes, so don't worry if you don't see your changes. That's it! Thanks so much for recording your progress. Keep up the good work!
	Additional Information/Resources: Who first used the phrase "Web 2.0" in the first place? Read the 2005 article by Tim O'Reilly that coins the phrase and lays out the concepts. Listen to an NPR (National Public Radio) Science Friday interview with Tim O'Reilly on the status of social media and future of computing. Teaching Social Software with Social Software. Ulises Mejias examines how social software (information and communications technologies that facilitate the collaboration and exchange of ideas) enables students to participate in distributed research, an approach to learning in which knowledge is collectively constructed and shared. You'll have to register for the Journal of Online Education, but it is free.