Web 2.0 Tools: November 2016

Sunday, November 27, 2016

Online Assessments

Online Publishing

Wikispaces

Aggregators

Web Based Spreadsheets and Databases

Internet Search Tools

Assessments, Publishing and Screencasting

In our society of 21st century learners, using online assessment tools can greatly benefit students and help them become more engaged. The i-Ready assessment that our district uses as well as the state PARCC test has integrated games into the content to give kids a brain break during the test and keep the students engaged. I opted to dig in the website Kahoot. This site allows you to make your own assessments or use one of the thousands already created. Here is a video on how it works:

Kahoot

The site is simple to use, but teachers must take the time to set up questions and answer choices and some students had trouble logging in the first time and correctly entering the game PIN. It is a great resource for pre and formative assessments for a fun way to check learning. The site also allows the options to create discussions and surveys. It is a very safe and secure site as students don't need to enter any personal information and just need the code to play. It is also free and available for any teacher to create an account. I have seen students participate using both iPads and Chromebooks.

Creating and publishing writing online is a great way to engage students in the process. Our district has a license for the Book Creator app and I have seen several teachers use it in their classes. This app allows student to write with a stylus, type their stories or even record their voice reading a story. They can also illustrate their own pictures or insert images into their creations. When their projects are complete, they can share them with others, have them printed or even upload them to YouTube.

Book Creator

This is a great app for students of all ages. Thanks to the recording feature, I have seen students use it as young as kindergarten. Students can use the app to teach and learn in any subject. Also, teachers can create their own books to share information with students. Since the app is self contained, it is very secure. Due to the cost and the fact that it is only available as an app and not a website, makes it less accessible than some other tools.

Screencasting

Screencasting is a great resource for teachers to create digital material to add to the lessons or to review concepts that have already been taught. Students can also use these tools for their own presentations. I chose to explore the website Prezi. On this site, students and teachers can create engaging presentations with images, videos, voice-overs and valuable information.

Prezi

Prezi is a fairly straight forward presentation site, but it does take time to navigate all of the features and is not very "kid friendly". You can find presentations that have already been created on a variety of different subjects or you can create your own. Any presentations that you plan on using should be carefully screened for age appropriateness. Students wishing to use the site must provide their information and create an account. Their is a free option for creating presentations, but you do not have access to all of the features and your files will not be private without a paid version.

How lucky are we to live in the information age? Wikis are available as a massive often worldwide collaboration project. I evaluated the most popular collaboration site - Wikipedia. Educators prefer that students not use Wikipedia because it is created and edited by the general public and therefore the information is not verified. However, researchers have found that it is over 99% accurate (Andrei, 2014).

Wikipedia

This site is extremely simple to use, students need only enter the topic they would like information on into the search bar. It is far and wide the most extensive wiki available and is full of information on pretty much any topic you are covering. While the wealth of information makes it very versatile, it is not easily adaptable because it is primarily an information source, though older students could edit or create their own topics. It is free and available to anyone with internet access, however there are many inappropriate entries so it is only as safe and secure as your wifi filters.

How would you like someone to come into your house and organize all of your junk drawers for you? An aggregator is a web site or software that will do that with all of the information that you regularly pull off of the web. It can collect information from news sources, social media accounts, photo sharing site, or nearly anything else. I chose to evaluate Flipboard. This site will literally compile all of the info from your chosen categories and create your own personalized site - magazine style. It is a tool that is much more beneficial to

Flipboard

Flipboard is fairly easy to use, just create an account and choose which categories you would like to pull information. The biggest problem is that there is so much information it can take a while to set up and decide what is truly important to you. You can find a variety of information on nearly anything you wish, but it is just information and doesn't provide other options and I don't see it as a great tool for student use. This is another free tool available to anyone with internet, but like Wikipedia it is not created for kids and contains content that is not filtered.

Since its creation, I have often used Google Sheets. This is a great tool for collecting and organizing data. It can be used by teachers or students to record data from projects, experiments, grades and more.

Google Sheets

Google Sheets can be learned very quickly, though it takes a little time to explore some of the more advanced features such as using formulas. It also has the ability to create calendars, lists, budgets and graphs. Each user must sign in with their own Google account, keeping all of their documents private, unless they wish to share them with others creating the ability to collaborate. Like other Google apps, Google Sheets is free to use and provides free storage to those with internet access.

One of the most challenging tasks for a teacher is to help students become responsible digital citizens. More and more teachers are using project based learning in their classrooms which often requires internet research. The best tool I have seen to help students navigate this task is Kiddle. This website was created by Google, but it completely safe for students to use.

Kiddle

As it was created for children, Kiddle is extremely simple to use. Students can research any topic and the search engine will return kid friendly and mostly educational sites. Like the other tools mentioned above, it is purely a resource to access information. This is one of the most secure sites that I have ever explored, if students attempt to access inappropriate information, whether by accident or on purpose, they will simply receive a message that says, "Oops, try again!".

Andrei, M. (2014, September 25). Study shows Wikipedia Accuracy is 99.5%. Retrieved from http://www.zmescience.com/science/study-wikipedia-25092014/

Simplicity

Learning Support

Versatility/Adaptability

Safety/Security

Availability