"What is it and why should I care?"

I created this site to help teachers make the move to online learning spaces as painless as possible. Many teachers are afraid to embrace new classroom technologies as they don't realize how far we have come! Fifteen years ago you would have had to configure downloads, know scripting languages and your students would have needed a much higher computer skill level to to participate in these kinds of online spaces - but that was yesterday!  Today you can click, type, and go! The internet is evolving at an amazing pace. In the 1990's the Internet burst on the scene as a fabulous tool for archiving and accessing information. Emails spun across the world in the blink of an eye and search engines answered all of our questions in a heartbeat. As the technology grew both in speed and ability a new focus began to take place. It was no longer enough to access online repositories of information - people wanted to create, collaborate and share ideas and documents. That's when the term web 2.0 was born. It describes an interactive collaborative approach to online experiences. All this sharing and collaborative effort results in more user generated and shared content or what we now call Social Media.  Why should you be using it in the classroom?

Collaboration 

Students are using the web for social interaction. Why not use the tools they enjoy for learning? Collaborating using Wikis and Google Docs allows students to take group work to a new level. The social context of Web 2.0 lets teachers retain the structure required for instruction while encouraging co-operative and peer driven learning.

Personal Learning Environments

Students take more care if they know more eyes than yours will be viewing it. Publishing and sharing work allows students to take greater pride and ownership in what they do. When student are proud of their work - they keep it. Now your students can grow a portfolio of work that they may archive and share on their own networks.