Using Web 2.0 Tools in High School Classrooms

 

 

 

 

By: Cheryl Myers

Make Smarter DecisionsDecisionStreet is designed to help you make difficult decisions - with outcomes that matter. It's aimed broadly at the big issues of life such as health, wealth, career, education, and family. The core of the service is built on academic and real world principles and processes for making difficult decisions.

 

 

 

 

timeline  

by Pam Lang

 

You can create timelines for free and place them in your blog or website.

 

 

 

 

 

 

by Pam Lang

 

 

Easybib is an "automatic bibliography composr" that lets users enter sources and fill out a simple forms to be given MLA style bibliographies.  This can be helpful in completing research papers.

 

 

 

 

http://www.flashcardexchange.com/

 

Susan Meece

You can create a free membership and create flashcards.  You did need to pay for a full membership, but the basic subscription takes care of the big ideas you need.  The home page uses a tagcloud to give you all sorts of options for flashcards for language, math, medical terms, and everything else!

 

http://www.allmyfaves.com/

 

 

Susan Meece

This web page has quick links to all of the big name search engines, maps, and videos.  It lists over 20 categories including weather, travel, sports, and magazines.  I think it would be a great site for high school students to use when they wanted to start a quick search for a project or paper that they would have to do for class.  It also has a weekly faves category that is easy to get sucked in to because it usually features interesting sites.  I also really like the magazine category, because students can quicly look for current events stories that interest them.

Backpack It

http://www.backpackit.com/

 

Ann-Marie Jackson

This site is more for high school and even college students to help keep them organized.  Students can use this site to organized their homework and project deadlines by creating a calendar, make pages which can organized a student's notes, to-dos images, files, etc.  Students can keep these pages for their own record or share them with study partners. keep research note taking or class notes by creating a page, and so much more.

 

 

 Blogger 

by C. Colcord

Blogger is a great resource for students of all ages, but I think it is especially useful for students in high school. Blogs give students the opportunities to create outlines, practice prewriting skills and strategies and allow them to generate, plan, and organize ideas for specific purposes.  I would use a classroom blog for my students to maintain a record of writing ideas, discussions about recent stories and books we have read, and for sharing ideas with the rest of the class.

 

 

 

 

Cisco Learning Connection

By Patrick Schwab

 

 

Cisco systems have put together a great program for anyone interested in learning different things about networking or hardware.  They offer free downloadable video lessons and they also offer programs that school can apply for as class programs.

 

 

trackstar4teachers

by Adam Hunt

 

My track on the Cuban Missile Crisis

 

Trackstar is a social bookmarking service similar to del.ici.ous but more geared towards the education field.  The basic idea is that you create a "track" of bookmarks on a particular topic (this would be a folder in other bookmarking programs) which you can then annotate and either make public or require an invite to see.  One of the really nice features is that someone viewing the track can't just close it out and jump to another folder...it basically keeps them on track and focused on the sites you want them to see.  They also provide hints for teachers in the process of creating tracks to make them more user friendly for the students.  You can make a quiz that covers the sites in your track or even set it up as a website, allowing you the freedom to set assignments using your track.  It could also be used as an advanced form of a launch page, providing a little more freedom but still keeping students on topic.  Another possibly interesting assignments...have high schoolers create their own tracks, possibly for things such as college information or content tracks for younger students.

 

Imagine sharing your classroom calendar with your students

by C. Colcord

Calendar Hub is a useful Web 2.0 resource for teachers who want to share the classroom calendar with their students. Teachers can publish test dates, homework due dates, and even provide details for assignments and share this information with their students. Students can also plan meeting times to study for tests and complete assignments. This calendar could be used at any grade level, however I think it would be especially useful at the high school level. As a special education teacher, I found the use of a shared calendar to be very helpful for scheduling meetings with other teachers, parents, and students. I have also found out that students are much more likely to use it and that some teachers will be reluctant to use it.

 In addition, wiki has a shared calendar that can be created and shared. Below is an example of the wiki shared calendar.

 

 

 

NASA Science Programs for High Schools

By Patrick Schwab

 

 

 

 

It has become very evident that we have sucked the fun out of learning.  The problem is that we have become so afraid of “what might” happen, we have forgotten what will happen.  As we move further from the physical laboratory and more into the virtual laboratory students are not seeing the spontaneous results that one can in the lab.  Programs like this have taken the lab and turned it into a club, helping to make science fun again.