BP6_2009_112_Research_and_Blogging_ 2.0 Tools

Palabea

http://www.palabea.net

Every year in school we ask our students to connect to some month or week that they otherwise would not pay any attention to. I am referring to Hispanic Heritage or Asian Heritage for example. Every year teachers either roll out the same material or struggle to find meaningful content for the students to connect to. As I looked at the Palabea website, I thought about how it could be manipulated to serving this need. Imagine how much more engaged the students would be to connect with someone whose culture they are studying and how much of an impact this would have in bringing the real world into the classroom and vice versa for them! I feel that this site is a valuable one for me and I will also share it with our Spanish teacher.

Ubidesk

https://www.ubidesk.com/

How many times have you heard, "Mrs. So and So, Little Johnny is not doing his part of the work for the project."? Well, I believe with this Web 2.0 tool, such complaints would be kept to a minimum because of the fact that you can document collaboration. Aside from that, it seems to be a really worthwhile tool to assist with getting the students organized and collaborating on projects both inside and outside the classroom. Admit it, it can be extremely frustration to have to wait until the next class to continue to have the students work on something, especially when you need to be a facilitator. With this tool, you do not need to worry about that because you can check on each group's progress beyond your classroom.

Sketchfu

http://sketchfu.com/

This is a fun tool that I will incorporate into my teaching to help my students learn their vocabulary words. I believe that the more time they spend with their vocabulary words, the better their retention and comprehension. Every week, I will assign one word from the week's list and ask the students to illustrate their interpretation of that word using Sketchfu. I will then take the ten best interpretations and put it up on the wall outside the classroom for one week. The students will have the weekend to work on it and turn it on Monday so that it has the chance to be on the wall for the entire week. This will excite them because not only will their classmates see their work but so will the other students and teachers.