Thursday, July 16, 2009

Web 2.0 Tools That Enhance Learning

Sandy encouraged me to participate in the professional development classes this summer. I led a class on Web 2.0 Tools and showed the group the wonders of Slideshare. Seriously, how great is it?! I uploaded the slideshow that I created, so they would be able to access it at any time. Every tool I shared with the class has already been introduced to you by Sandy, but feel free to take a look!

After looking through 280slides, I don't really see using the tool very much. PowerPoint does have a bunch of distractions, but the kids get excited to use it. They like bells and whistles and are challenged to find legitimate ways to integrate them. When my students have their very own version of PowerPoint on their own laptops it just makes sense to stick with that.

We have our students share their Water Cycle PowerPoints with the class. It is a royal pain in the neck to have them save it to their flash drive, bring it up to my laptop, find it in the correct window (which is still challenging for them since this is our first PPT project) and then get moving. I love the idea of having them upload it to slideshare and just accessing it from my laptop that way. Plus, Slideshare can be a very valuable tool for them in the future. What a great way to see a lesson from another viewpoint or to get caught up on the lesson that they missed.

1 comment:

  1. Man, you keep one-upping me! :) You are so darn smart. I love learning from you. I looked at that slideshare and was IIIIIMPRESSED!

    I hadn't thought about the difficulty in having kids share big files on the projector. Great idea.

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