Web 2.0 Tools in the Classroom

Web 2.0 Tools in the Classroom

Using Evernote in the Classroom

Evernote is a Web 2.0 tool which allows its users to type notes, store documents, record audio and capture images by signing up for a free account. It has the added benefit of saving and synchronizing all of the information on your Evernote profile with all of your digital devices making it accessible to you anywhere.

Evernote is designed with its users in mind, making life easier and allowing you to organize your life, plan trips/events, design and manage projects of all kinds, and store countless amounts of information all in one place. This all makes it a great tool to help you remember important ideas, store projects and many other kinds of information.

Evernote also provides many other opportunities for use in the classroom offering other products such as Skitch which allows you to edit photos and label diagrams/images from your device or the web and Evernote Peek which allows you to organize all of your class notes and images and turn them into study notes.

Students who have difficulties with reading can use Evernote Clearly to make online reading much easier and more accessible to the indvidual needs of a student. For students who may have troubles keeping track of their notes with scattered binders and lockers, they can use Penultimate to make their class notes on a digital device (iPad) without worrying about losing paper and being able to add images, videos, multi-colored highlighting and text right into their notes. For information on many other reasons why there are benefits to this interactive approach to note taking for students check out this link.

Evernote has no restrictions in age use according to its terms of service. But it does state that Evernote is not currently directed towards use by children and thus it is their expectation if a child is to use Evernote, that it is under the direct supervision of a guardian, parent, teacher, etc.

The Web 2.0 tool Quizinator allows the user to make a free account and create worksheets, study sheets, quizzes and even exams using an online resource library to organize and manage the questions and answers they want to use.

You can create many different versions of the same exam/quiz/assignment and rearrange the questions and answers by drag and dropping them to different parts of the test. Because it is saved online, you can print your documents from anywhere.

 Quizinator allows you to:

• Update your question and answer resource library quickly and easily.
• Take questions and answers from your other libraries anytime you need to in order to create a worksheet, exam or quiz.
• Rearrange the worksheet/quiz/exam answers questions and answers to ensure students have different copies and are less likely to cheat.
• You can assign point values, add headers/footers and any necessary instructions to your quiz/exam/worksheet.
• Save your documents from anywhere and everywhere on your online database and thus have access to them at all times.

Quizinator can be used to help teachers break all of the information they have in different content areas into a categorized library of questions and answers. It makes it very easy for teachers to have variety in the types of questions and answers they provide for students and rearrange the order of them in their exams/quizzes/worksheets. Because Quizinator is online, all of the teachers documents, intormation, test databases are accessible for them at any time, in any place.

This would be a good tool for helping teachers focus more on the material rather than the design and structure of assignments and tests. It would also help teachers in preparing their students for studying as it would allow them to create a wide variety of study questions and worksheets to help in exam preparation.This could of great value having all of this information in one place when it comes to needing to make necessary modifications and differentiating assignments for certain students. When it is determined students need adjustments made to their tests, quizzes or assignments, it would be quite easy for teachers to pick and choose what questions would be appropriate to add for each student.

By having this variety, students will get exposure to a larger questions pool in their worksheets and quizzes with still allowing for a wide pool of questions to choose from on their exams. There has been research which has proven this scrambling of questions for students has shown to have no negative impact on student performance thus making this tool very useful. Having this much exposure to the information will help learners have multiple opportunities to learn the material. Much the same as teachers can create multiple worksheets and quizzes with many questions, students could also take part in the creation of these to guide and assist in their own learning. If students had cooperative learning study groups Quizinator would be a great tool to challenge and prepare students for exams and better comprehend the material.

According the Quizinator's terms of service, you must be 13years or older to sign up for the free account.

Another Web 2.0 tool is PhotoPeach which allows you to create slideshows which can incorporate various music, captions, images and comments to further elaborate on the materials you are presenting on. It includes some other features like creating interactive quiz slides, adapting your privacy levels and adding a comment section where people can provide feedback on the slideshow.

You can create a free account which gives you access to many of the PhotoPeach features. Some of these benefits for teachers to use in the classroom include its ease of use to create creative slideshows in a short period of time, its flexible privacy settings and the opportunities it provides for students and teachers to engage in interactive collaborative group work. There is also a PhotoPeach Class Premium account for Educators that has a very reasonable monthly cost depending on the number of students the teacher wants to have access to it. As well as the free account features, the Premium account allows you to have a slideshow which is ad-free, use an unlimited amount of photos, download unlimited slideshows and upload your own music. No matter which account you have, PhotoPeach seems to offer a wide variety of benefits to its users.

PhotoPeach outlines many different ways, this Web 2.0 tool can be utilized to assist students and break down learning barriers including:

• Using pictures, story telling, vocabulary quizzes, etc. to help ESL students to help them better understand and relate to concepts.
• Helps to support reading/writing for students with disabilities.
• Help demonstrate various types of computer applications in an interactive format.
• Tutorials on curriculum content to help students with comprehension of material.

PhotoPeach can be used by all ages according to the terms of services but anyone under 13 years of age are required to have a parent/guardian review and assist them in completing the account registration process.

Middlespot.com allows you to create an online "dashboard" which is accessible through all of your various digital devices. Having this flexible access means you can add to it and access it anytime from anywhere. Middlespot is a search engine tool which allows you to search a variety of databases including twitter, amazon and images. You can then take various files that you find (notes, pictures, documents, music, videos, widgets, etc.) and very easily organize everything into folders and sections on a workpad. You can customize these workpads background and colors as well as the items by layering, grouping, resizing, moving and grouping items in any way you want. It provides a great opportunity for collaboration amongst dashboard users. Other people can access your dashboard and if you want you can even allow them to add to your dashboards.

I think this would be a really cool tool for teachers to use to create a workpad for students to go to access information on certain topics. For example, you could have a middlespot.com dashboard dedicated to global warming or deforestation which is full of videos, links, articles, pictures, etc. It could also be a collaborative effort where each student is required to pick something interesting from their webs searching and share it with the rest of the class on a collaborative class dashboard. Middlespot.com provides you with a free account for use of up to 25mb of content but has other options for quite reasonable prices to increase your content allowance but it also for only has a special education plus account which is advertisement free, has no bandwith limits and provides you with 250mb of booklet content.

Middlespot helps to reduce student barriers as it is a very user friendly search engine which provides students with the ability to save their searches and findings on a single space. If they find something interesting they don't have to write it down or keep track of the urls. They can simply post it to their workspace. Also for every search the students do, a mini thumbnail picture comes up showing students what their findings look like which would cut down excessive time spent gonig in and out of websites while researching. If it was a group work project, it would also mean that students could share their findings for the project in one central location for all members to see.

Middlespot.com does not appear to have any age restrictions according to its terms of service but it does state clearly that it does not intentionally collect any information about users who are under the age of 13. This reads as a you at your discretion type of policy.