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Week 14 - Chapter 31 and Favorite Web 2.0 Applications

I personally enjoyed learning all of the Web 2.0 applications but the two that I loved the most were Delicious and Blogs.  While I see and understand better now the other applications and will continue to utilize them, I ended up using Delicious and blog on a more regular basis. 

The first application is Delicious.  Since being introduced to this concept, I am a regular user to organize all of the websites I use for teaching.  Many of the videos we watched in class, I have saved and shown them to my Technology Fundamentals class.  I have folders for different topics and it makes my life a lot more organized and easy.  It also adds enrichment to my lesson plans.  Watching a video on how to do something sticks longer with my students.  I also can supply the link to my students through our Moodle system.  So, if they are attempting to do a project, they can access the video any time they want at home.  Also, through Delicious I can connect with others that have similar interests and use their information.  I learned through my professors that it is okay to steal lesson plans on the internet.  That is what they are there for.  We all share and it saves us so much time!  On p. 300, Terry Anderson states, “The value of this application (bookmarking) thus increase because of the aggregated input of others.  This allows discovery of the most popular sites, annotating, discussing, sorting, and selecting resources based on the value and tags attributed to the Web resource by other users.” 

The second application is a blog.  I am excited to have my students create a blog in the upcoming weeks.  I believe they will see the benefits and realize how easy it can be.  It is a great way to stay connected as well as informed.  On p. 303 Anderson cites a 2008 study of Web 2.0 in British high school done by Crook and Harrison, “Publication was felt to enhance a learner’s sense of ownership, engagement and awareness of audience.  Publication online was used by some teachers as a key element in peer assessment and was found to encourage more attention to detail and improved the quality of work.”  I think this is a wonderful way to teach the students but at the same time, they will feel the same type of ownership that I did when I was able to create my first blog.  It felt so empowering and I would love to share that with my students.  However, at the same time it is the perfect opportunity for me to teach my students about privacy issues, especially at such a young and vulnerable age.  They need to be taught (or firmly reminded) about what is appropriate to post in a blog, who should have access to the blog, how to respond to comments, how to comment on others’ blogs, etc.