He shows us exactly how powerful blogs and wikis can be to a students educational experience. Students spend more time thinking about what they are going to write, they are not just regurgitating information, but actually processing it and forming an opinion. The have an audience and get feedback about their thinking”.
Free online software is available to help practice skill sets and hopefully your school budget has allowed for a video camera or web cam as he also shows us how ESL students excel with pronouncing words when they are being recorded. What a motivating factor. In another example we are shown how web cams in the classroom helped to include a student with cancer that could not attend class. By using the web cam, she was able to be an active part of the classroom experience. I think the think I found the most amazing was the students ability to publish, broadcast and make production decisions when producing their own digital videos. Their publications on bullying and being an individual were and are truly inspiring.I think this is the way of the future, or at least I hope so. Innovative teachers who realize that we can teach students more, or help them reach their true potential with technology integration. It is our duty as educators to find mediums that help our students to think, to actively engage in thinking. If they can post their thoughts or put them on video, how much more exciting. Let's put our text books down for a minute and see what other tools we have to help our students process information. Use your web 2.0 tools if you can. They provide powerful mediums for learning and collaboration.
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