Tools+and+Applications

 //Wiki// ** A wiki is a tool for creating content for multiple authors. Defined as “a collaborative authoring Web site application that allows users to easily write, edit, and publish to the Internet” (1) wikis are easy to use and require no programming skills. In the article “The Web 2.0 way of learning with technologies” wikis are explained as follows:
 * The Tools for a Successful Relationship with Web 2.0 

"Using the simple and easy-to-learn wiki syntax, pages can be edited on the fly, within the browser, without the need for editing markup source code or using file transfer clients. Links within wikis are bidirectional inside the wiki. Thus, not only the source page, but also the target page knows about the link, which is not the case in the traditional WWW. Links usually conform to a simple format called WikiWords. The content of wikis is rendered using web standards and can be accessed by most current web browsers." (2) The term wiki is originally attributed to Ward Cunningham ( [|WikiWikiWeb] ). It was named after a shuttle bus at the Honolulu International Airport and means “quick” in Hawaiian.

The most popular wiki is [|Wikipedia], a free online encyclopedia that can be edited by anyone. “Although controversial as an accurate reference source, “the power of the great numbers of contributors keeps Wikipedia very current. New developments in all fields are more quickly reflected in Wikipedia than in any print encyclopedia. Likewise, errors are fixed or articles are flagged as incomplete.(3) Other popular educational wikis are wikispaces and [|PBwiki.]

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**//Blogs// ** A blog is a web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks provided by the writer (Merriam Webster). Short for weblog, blogs “allow an author to self publish and organize information or knowledge.” (1) They consist of blog entries that are chronologically sorted and can be categorized or tagged (2). Prominent features of a blog are comment, linking and syndication functions. The comment function permits the author and reader to communicate with each other, although this feature can be turned off. The linking function is another form of interaction whereby blogs will link uni- or bi-directionally. The syndication function permits a user to subscribe to blog updates using syndication tools such as RSS and Atom Syndication Format. Blogs are frequently used in the educational environment to share news, events and academic ideas. A good matrix of blog ideas for instructors and students can be found [|edtechpost]. Examples are study abroad journals ([|zoeinghana] ) or student projects ([|elementary school blogs] ). Commonly used applications for Weblogs include [|Blogger], [|Wordpress], [|Class Blogmeister], or downloadable to organizational servers or [|edublogs].

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**//Social Bookmarking and Highlighting// ** Social bookmarking is an application that is similar to a favorites list in a browser except it is accessible from any computer connected to the Internet. It is used to save and share bookmarks that can be annotated or tagged. Like other Web 2.0 tools it makes use of the social tagging system called a folksonomy. This system is “derived from taxonomy, a hierarchical list, or categorization. The folksonomy focuses on a group of people cooperatively organizing information into agreed categories.”(3)

The most prominent example of social bookmarking is Del.icio.us. [|Del.icio.us] was created in 2003 by Joshua Schachter as an informal way to tag and share web pages between friends. The tool uses the web as the platform; the user uses the tool through a web browser from any computer on the Internet. For each website a user saves, the person notes the title of the site, the URL (web address), and words, called tags, to describe the site.”(3).

Another excellent social bookmarking and highlighting tool is [|Diigo]. Diigo allows users to easily bookmark pages, organize their bookmarks, and then share their bookmarks. Not only can users create lists of bookmarks, though; a wonderful feature of Diigo is the ability to highlight and annotate any web page. With so much reading being done online, Diigo has created a much needed way for readers to be able to interact with online text, just as they would with print text. As if that isn't cool enough, as soon users sign in to their Diigo accounts, they are able to see the highlights and annotations that other Diigo users have put on the web pages that they are reading. This opens up a huge opportunity for collaboration in both informal and formal educational settings. Look at a video about Diigo [|right here].

media type="youtube" key="x66lV7GOcNU" height="265" width="320" ** //Social Sharing// ** Similar to social bookmarking, social sharing services are applications that share other services such as photos, audio files, videos, and books and use the folksonomy tagging process to categorize the content. Several examples are: [|Flickr] and [|Picasa], web-based photo sharing applications; [|YouTube] and [|Google Video], web based video sharing applications, [|iTunes] shares audio and video files via syndication software, and more recent entries are [|GoogleDocs] a collaborative word processing software; [|LibraryThing] a tool to share and catalog a user’s personal library, and [|GoodReads] and [|Shelfari] where users can share and rate their personal reading lists.

Podcasts can also be categorized as a social sharing application. They are user created audio files that are typically downloaded to a user’s iPod or mp3 player. The content tends to range from professionally created radio and television audio files to amateur created content, and run the gamut in terms of topic.

There are a variety of uses for these tools in the educational arena; from digital storytelling and multimedia essays to recording class lectures and interviewing campus speakers, their use is only limited by a user’s imagination.

media type="youtube" key="vPU4awtuTsk" height="265" width="320" ** // Social Networking //  ** The Internet has become such an integral part of people’s lives, it is often where they go to connect with others. This phenomenon is regularly known as social networking. The most popular sites in this area are [|MySpace] and [|Facebook]. Facebook and MySpace gives registered users a web page to personalize as they choose, within limits. There are spaces on each person’s page to link to other friends, leave messages, describe themselves, and post pictures. They enhance the social aspect by making it easy to find other people with shared interests.

Other sites that allow users to create their own custom social networks are [|Elgg] and [|Ning]. These are great opportunities for educators to build social networks with a greater control of content on their specific site. For in introduction with Ning, check out these outstanding education Nings: [|Classroom 2.0] and [|Ning in Education].

media type="youtube" key="6a_KF7TYKVc" height="265" width="320" <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">** //<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Mashups // <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;"> ** A mashup is a website that combines data or technology from two or more sources into a single user experience. A frequent focus of mashups is Google Maps. Creative developers often use Google Maps interface to deliver geographical data from other sources. [|Weather Bonk] combines weather forecasts, web cams, and maps. (Darlene Fichter – shares basic directon for getting started using Google Maps to create a mashup. (3)

Data from different sites can be pulled together in order to provide new values with the different combinations of data. This allows for a whole range of handcrafted merges of data sources, from the dynamic embedding of advertisements in Adsense to the dynamic visualization of housing information in Google Maps. (3)


 * //<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Twitter // <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;"> **

[|Twitter] is a microblogging platform that restricts posts from a desktop, mobile computer, or SMS to 140 characters. You can follow others on Twitter and other twitterers can follow you. When someone “tweets” (posts) it is automatically broadcast to all the people who are following them. The main idea of twitter is to answer the questions "what are you doing?"

The twitter craze was highlighted by a race between Anderson Cooper of CNN and actor Ashton Kutcher to see who could gain 1 million followers. People who were following Anderson Cooper were interested in the quick news blurbs that were tweeted by him (or his news show workers) and people following Ashton Kutcher were interested in following the day to day life of a celebrity.

Many who have “tried” Twitter have quickly dismissed it as a useless tool for following the random thoughts of others. Educators, however, recognize the power of Twitter's well established professional network. If one is following a number of people who are working in the education field in some way then they can hear the conversations going on about various topics. Someone might tweet about a new website or a fun lesson that they discovered. Others will tweet their own opinion about that particular topic if they have something to contribute. A beneficial aspect of Twitter is asking questions. If 20 or 30 or even 100 people are following you and you ask a questions about a certain educational topic, you are bound to get a response soon, sometimes right away. With limited room to type and a user somewhere just waiting to respond, this could be a great tool to help students learn how to ask better questions. Also, it is becoming increasingly popular to link to pictures, blogs, and other websites. What starts as a 140 character response can quickly lead to a [|22000 character] essay from [|the Atlantic] (Johnson, 2009).

How would you get so many followers? You can find who to follow and others can find you by looking for key words in all the tweets. As a math teacher I can search for “algebra lesson” or “math resource” and I can find all the twitterers who tweet about what I am interested in. Others are doing the same so if I consistently tweet educational tweets then I am bound to get similar educational followers.

Another aspect of Twitter worth noting is the immediacy of the responses. Steven Johnson (2009) differentiates Twitter from Google, calling Google's search engine a 'slow, anonymous accumulation of authority,' (p. 35) relying on repeated visits to a certain site over time as the criteria for earning page-one status. Twitter, however, is happening right-now. The authority is determined by the tweets a user chooses to follow, and the accumulation is immediate.

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Johnson, S.B. (2009, June 15). [|How Twitter will change the way we live]. //TIME//, 173(23), 32-37.
 * Works Cited on this Page**

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">**<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Suggestions for Further Reading: ** [|An Open Source Education] by Sanda Gittlin; this article showcases a California district that used Elgg to create an award winning collaborative district.

[|Cool Cat Teacher Blog]; written by Award Winning teacher Vicki Davis, Cool Cat is a constant look at how web 2.0 tools are shaping education and the world around us.

[|e-learning 2.0 - How Web Technologies are Shaping Education] by Steve O'Hear; In this short article, O'Hear provides excellent, specific examples of how certain web 2.0 tools can be used in education. Of note are his examples of podcasting, blogging, and annotating images in flickr. Also, it links to a part two (listed blow).

<span class="wiki_link_ext"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">[|Elgg - social network software for education]  <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;"> by Steve O'Hear; in this second part of two on e-learning, O'Hear focuses on a social network site for education. Excellent examples for how to use a tool that students are clearly excited about and use it in the classroom.

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">[|50 Ways to Use Wikis for a More Collaborative and Interactive Classroom] From SmartTeaching.org, this is a wonderful resource for ways to use wikis in the classroom. The 50 ways are divided into 7 categories such as 'Resource Creation,' 'Student Interaction,' and 'Group Work.'

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">[|Twitter in Education] From <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">[|academHacK], this blog post explores the possibilities of using Twitter for learning. Though the article is geared toward higher education, quite a few of the ideas are adaptable to junior high and high school. Additionally, the article gives good insight into the virtues of web 2.0.

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">[|Web 2.0 Tools and Applications] at Go2Web20.net is the most comprehensive collection of web 2.0 application we've come across