Web 2.0

Web 2.0 

Tools for the Classroom

By: Madison Stitzenberger

Wikispaces Classroom is a social writing platform for education. We make it incredibly easy to create a classroom workspace where you and your students can communicate and work on writing projects alone or in teams. Rich assessment tools give you the power to measure student contribution and engagement in real-time. Wikispaces Classroom works great on modern browsers, tablets, and phones (wikispaces.com, 2014). 

They can monitor their students' work as it happens so they can give feedback, assistance, and encouragement as needed, while all the time focusing on the work of the classroom, not the tools (wikispaces.com, 2014).

Wikispaces Classroom is built around a familiar communications newsfeed that encompasses the work of the class and a private social network. Teachers get the tools to quickly communicate with their students as individuals and groups. Students get the flexibility to engage with their peers at their own pace without sacrificing privacy. The end result is more participation and enthusiasm in the classroom (wikispaces.com, 2014).

Pros: 

• Easy to use and has a step by step technology which guides students through using Wiki.
• Students are able to develop communication skills within class using the computer
• Wiki products are immediate so there is no need to wait for a publisher to create a new edition or update information.
• Anyone can edit and it is easy to use and follow. This gives students the potential for being authors, not just researchers.
• It provides opportunities for "active-learning" activities in the classroom.
• People located in different parts of the world can work on the same document and add their own parts. This builds a community of learners.
• Teachers can view ‘recent changes’ on the student’s Wikispaces which assists the assessment processes.
• Widens access to the power of web publishing to non-technical users
• Wiki has no prearranged structure - it is a flexible tool which can be used for a wide variety of applications.
• There is a wide choice of open source software Wiki's to choose from so licensing costs make it more affordable (to installing an institutional Wiki).
• it has email, a soical network and ms word all in one which alows people to get the most of this (http://kingofbeasts.wikispaces.com, 2014)

Cons: 

• Anyone can edit so this may be too open for some applications, for example confidential documentation. However it is possible to regulate user access.
• Students become easily distracted and use the computers for purposes other than course-related activities.
• Open to SPAM and Vandalism if not managed properly. There are easy ways to restore a page however, and on WikiEducator you must be logged in to edit pages so this reduces vandalism by automated spam bots.
• Requires Internet connectivity to collaborate, but technologies to produce print versions of articles are improving.
• The flexibility of a wiki's structure can mean that information can become disorganised. As a wiki grows, the community plans and administers the structure collaboratively.
• Are you building a freely editable and public wiki, or do you need to be conscious of privacy and security? There can also be issues of legal liability and risk to reputation, particularly if you publish to the web. Options such as a moderated wiki format, user agreements, and locking some pages from public view can offer protection (http://kingofbeasts.wikispaces.com, 2014).

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends (wordle.net, 2013)

Pros: 

• Easy to use and print
• Choose fonts, size and colors
• Protect words and phrases
• Remove words (starcamp.wikispaces.com, 2014)
• Wordle is free and no sign up/sign in is necessary to use the tool
• Wordle helps by summarizing/highlighting the keywords of a text
• It allows for a visual representation of a text (wiki.agroknow.gr, 2014)

Cons: 

• No shapes
• Can only save if it is public (starcamp.wikispaces.com, 2014)
• Word clouds puts emphasis on the popular information, that might not always be the useful/important information
• In some cases the visual effects of the tag cloud can bias the interpretation of the visualization (wiki.agroknow.gr, 2014)

Is a multi-platrorm mathematics software that gives everyone the chance to experience the extraordinary insights that make math possible (geogebra.org, 2014).

GeoGebra is dynamic mathematics software for all levels of education that brings together geometry, algebra, spreadsheets, graphing, statistics and calculus in one easy-to-use package. GeoGebra is a rapidly expanding community of millions of users located in just about every country. GeoGebra has become the leading provider of dynamic mathematics software, supporting science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education and innovations in teaching and learning worldwide (geogebra.org, 2014).

Pros

• Interactive, one could change the image in seconds.
• Animations
• "Simple to use"
• Loops are possible using lists.
• Supports TeX graphics
• Gentle learning curve
• Many output formats such as TikZ, PNG, EPS, Asymptote and so on
• Input can be both interactive, and through command (tex.stackexchange.com, 2014)

Cons

• Hard to create 3D images
• Can be a tad slow
• Input in LaTeX sometimes does not look as good as TikZ
• External program (tex.stackexchange.com, 2014)

Ning makes it easy to launch your own social network in a matter of minutes.We give you the tools and expertise to nurture and engage your own community on the largest, most scalable, and integrated social platform of its kind. Whether you're building a new site, looking to integrate community into your existing site, or re-launching your current site, Ning can handle it.

We pioneered the ability to create your own social network 6 years ago - and now, 2 million communities later, we've perfected the best platform for cultivating your own community (ning.com, 2014)

Pros: 

• It’s free.  (I say “virtually free” because you should use your own URL, not xxx.Ning.com, and Ning charges a month to do that.)
• Inexpensive upgrades allow you to use your own domain and get rid of Google ads
• You can run ads and even charge members to advertise
• Ning site contents ranks well in Google search
• Built-in promotional tools make easy for you and your members to promote your network
• Ning has good support available.  It’s free in the help forums, and you can buy upgraded support
• Later, you can buy the source code if you want to move your community off Ning and onto your site (howtostartasocialnetwork.com, 2014)

Cons: 

• Bandwidth limits and fees. As you grow beyond free limits, you must pay for additional bandwidth
• Central hosting. You cannot host the network on servers of your choosing.  Your business or community depends on Ning’s system to be up.
• Potential for spam and abuse.  It is both an advantage and a disadvantage that members of your network are also members of Ning itself. Larry Brauner, an online social networking expert and creator of his own Ning network, mentions that the ability of members to share their favorite Ning social networks and content with all their friends across Ning sites has lead to some spamming by members and intruders.
• Reputation for being inexpensive. If your potential members are likely to expect something slick, Ning may not be the option for you.
• Friend request limit of 50 per user. While Ning previously let any user have 100 outstanding friend requests, it’s now down to 50.  Ning changed the limit to reduce the potential for spam, but this affects the ability of individual users to reach out.  (Many people ignore or don’t know what to do with such request.  Users must delete some outstanding requests to initiate more and stay under the limit.) (howtostartasocialnetwork.com, 2014)