Wordle

Wordle or word clouds are a fun and creative way for students to participate. As a history teacher I have thought of several ways to use Wordle in class. One way would be for students to come up with terms for a word cloud that will be used on an exam. If we are working with a major historic event like WWII students could make a wordle to help them remember the terms, themes or major ideas behind this event. I like the use of Wordle for a brainstorming tool for students to use. I like Wordle because it can be used in group projects, as a whole class or on an individual basis. I feel that word clouds offer students the ability to be creative while at the same time learn major concepts in the curriculum.

Tokbox

Tokbox is one of my favorite web 2.0 tools. It has great potential in the classroom. If a student has a question they can ask me via tokbox and I can reply in person over tokbox. If I have a class web site students can do short presentations in groups or alone then post them to the web site using tokbox. I can create a video that includes assignments or potential changes to assignments and post them online. If a student is absent I can send a tokbox video message that will include that days assignment. If students need to collaborate on a project tokbox is an excellent resource as they can use visual images from home.

WEB 2.0

Web 2.0 is a wide variety of web based tools that allow users to do a multitude of tasks online that were not available until recently. The world of communication is changing as we are entering a new era in which social networking sites are a major form of communication. Tools such as Skype and Tokbox make visual communication a reality. I think the most important thing about web 2.0 is that it allows users to collaborate on projects. With applications like google docs people can come together online and create something unique that each of these people can edit. Whats even better is that the people who are collaborating on a project whether it's a presentation for work or school a web site or just a basic document, do not have to even physically meet. Web 2.0 allows users the ability to access this web information from anywhere that has the internet.