Web 2.0 post!!!!!!!!

Web 2.0 in a nutshell is a collection of applications and services that a person can link up to on any computer with an internet connection. In todays increasingly technological based education, having sources that are available anywhere is invaluable, so one can create something on one computer and access it on another without having to email documents to oneself or use a zip disc that can easily get lost or broken. Having access to these tools is also on the whole free, which is incredibly important for educators as our funds aren’t unlimited, especially when it comes to technology. Though there are a ton of resources we can use, I’d like to go into depth for a couple of these applications below and how we could use it in a classroom…

Skype – this application is sort of a web-based phone messaging system. Currently my younger sister has been using this program a ton due to her being in England for the next six months. It’s free, and just like talking to someone across the room, but instead you’re talking to your computer and watching a video of the person on the other computer. In regards to using it in the classroom, I think this could be a great tool to use if someone has been sick and out of the classroom for a bit. The class could call upon the ill student and talk about things that have been going on in class. It could also be used to do conferences with parents who aren’t able to make it into the classroom with concerns about their student.

Delicious.com – This application is a web based social bookmarking site. One could use this website to show students particular sites that are of interest that correlate to what’s been taught in class. Using this site I could bookmark certain sites that are of interest that the student could show to their parents to facilitate learning at home as well as in the classroom. This would also work well when working on a research paper to show students good resources to start their papers from.