Web+2.0

The use of Web 2.0 gives the teacher many options in developing and critiquing old lesson plans. This tool keeps education fresh and exciting!

Web 2.0 is an amazing innovation in the progression of technology. With the new tools provided through web 2.0, learning will now be easier and more interesting than ever before. It is absolutely astonishing how far we have come along in our education. A teacher’s job seems much easier to come up with the most interesting and effective teaching methods. Web 2.0 not only makes the teacher’s life easier but also makes the process of learning for a student that much more enjoyable. Web 2.0 will continue to push education to evolve significantly throughout the future. As a future teacher, I will continue to use these new and interesting teaching tools to become as effective as can be. For the sake of this assignment I can only write about five web 2.0 tools that will be implemented into my curriculum, so I will choose five but the choices were very difficult. As a potential History and Geography teacher, knowing facts and obtaining insight into topics is very important. Research is a prime component of both of the subjects, therefore having good obtainable research is a must. An effective tool that I found for research is called Wolfram Alpha. Essentially WA is a fact giver and organizer. The students can use this computational knowledge engine to ask questions that I might not be able to cover in a given lecture. I believe giving lectures towards the students can be very beneficial, as effective lectures help to give foundations of given areas of study. I would like to use power points and other visual aids throughout my lectures to keep the students interested and visually stimulated. Web 2.0 had two tools that I found effective for this. One of them is called Prezentit and Prezi, both of these are highly evolved power points models that can make being a teacher seem astonishing. I also believe because of the extremely cool and entertaining platforms in which these are presented, that the students will have trouble getting distracted and will pay more attention. Testing is another big part of education; it allows teachers to have a generalized understanding of where students are at as far as education being obtained. I found a great web 2.0 tool that not only will help benefit the student but also benefit the teacher. Web 2.0 tool Yacapaca is a testing engine that is both interactive and informative. A teacher can go on there and look at other teachers tests posted to compare notes and gain educational questions that might be more beneficial as to what is being addressed. Or simply just have an understanding of where other schools are at as far subject content. What this does is bring the world together to know how similar or opposite different schools, regions, and states are as far as education purposes pertain. It is also an interactive engine, meaning that if I as a teacher were to write a test and want my students to work on it over the weekend or something; they could go home and take the test from the privacy of their own home. It is making education a virtual reality. Visual stimuli is an important part of education in my opinion, I definitely see benefits in implementing viral videos into my curriculum. I know as a current student that videos have amazing abilities to inspire and create enthusiasm over topics. As a teacher, I will want to implement videos uploaded to Youtube and give them a short clip or video that is pertaining towards the topic. Additionally to youtube, I was introduced to an even better tube site called teachertube. This tube site has strictly educational videos that can be effective as well and will save time in finding appropriate teaching video. For instance if I was discussing the civil war I could go to the site type in civil war and get a short video with quotes and pictures of life during that period. This would give the students context and allow them to get a frame of mind of the period being discussed. Finally I will use a web 2.0 tool call webspiration, with this tool it will create students to organize their thinking and allow for exploration and attention to detail. It will strengthen organization while also allowing ideas to turn into knowledge. It will be effective for group work and collaborative efforts as well. In summation, web 2.0 is a tremendously effective teaching tool and will benefit the education world significantly. The examples given here are simply only examples, there are so many tools that continue to learn and evolve with the new tools, this will only make effective teaching methods evolve. Students now have the privilege of learning ideas and topics in an extremely fascinating ways. I am very grateful to have been given the opportunity of learning these progressive teaching and learning methods.