Now You Try It…  Using Web 2.0 Tools in the K-12 ClassroomOf course, a book, no matter how comprehensive, cannot contain detailed plans in every subject at every grade level. One of the goals of Bev’s Educational Website is to add additional suggestions and exercises you can use with your students in subjects that space would not permit me to cover in my book. Educator exercises provide librarians and teachers, who are novices at using Web 2.0 tools, with suggestions they can use to practice with Web 2.0 tools and engage in conversations with other educators using these tools. Find tips and tricks, features, and lesson plans, to name a few, to increase your comfort level with a tool before trying it with your students. If you have a good idea, send it to me to post so that other educators can benefit. Here are some tasks to try. Examples
Web 2.0 Tools: Yes or No
This exercise can be used in staff development at your school. Divide educators into groups of four or five. Working in groups also provides different perspectives because we all bring a variety of experience and points-of-view to the discussions. Each group is assigned a Web 2.0 tool to research. Check Using Web 2.0 in the K-12 Classroom and select a tool from Chapters 2-8. Each group will:
Exercises for Web 2.0 Tools
A good site for challenging exercises to practice using Web 2.0 tools is at http://sites.google.com/site/web20wednesdaychallenge/ . Here's how to use it:
--Read the chapter in Using Web 2.0 Tools in the Classroom related to one tool such as blogging, VoiceThread, Google Maps, to name a few. This will introduce you to the tool.
--Complete the exercises in the chapter in the book first.
--Select the tool from the Table of Contents on the Wednesday Challenge site.
--Follow directions on the exercises listed that requires you to practice what you have been learning.
--Then, try a short lesson in your classroom or library.
Note there are other sample sites to explore where teachers are incorporating the tool into their classrooms. These will give you more ideas to try yourself. Finally, you can also participate in the weekly challenge and have a chance of winning each week.
Political Election Exercise: Advice for the Candidates
Here is an assignment that will give teachers an online writing and publishing opportunity that they can tailor to their local curriculum and use as a way to help students use writing to think through their learning about the issues that are at stake in the current, or any, presidential election. Here are some examples: a science teacher who's investigating environmental issues can help students write about those issues. An English language teacher who's having students investigate controversial issues can pick topics that are of most interest to them and make a persuasive case for them (e.g., animal rights, endangered species, pollution). In either case students are talking about the issues that matter to them as young people because it's their future. Authentic audience Using Web 2.0 tools provides an authentic audience for students. For example, students can send VoiceThreads to candidates, members of Congress and congressional staffs, or they can publish their thoughts on a website, blog or wiki so that the public can read them. This broad audience will give students a reason to be thoughtful, to research, to write and revise, to try to make their persuasive pieces as broadly communicative as possible. It will also connect young people with the election process and how important it will be for them to vote when they are of age.
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New BookUsing Web 2.0 Tools in the K-12 Classroom
This new book describes and illustrates how to use Web 2.0 tools in lessons that educators will create for their K-12 classrooms and libraries.
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Teacher Exercises |