http://ed2203.wikispaces.com/ 

1) Learning to use the wiki myself. Before I can effectivly teach students to use wiki’s, I must be able to use them easily myself. It took a long time to learn how to use a wiki properly and I am still learning. This does inhibit my ability to use wikis to their full potential.

2) Others being able to edit my work. When I allowed others to change my wiki, it became very frustrating. It takes alot of co-ordination to make sure that people know which pages they are supposed to be editing and details such as that. I had to learn that just because somone changed my work ,did not mean that they were criticising it, only trying to improve it with their input.

3) Links and widgets. One of the most frustrating things about the wiki was getting the technology to work. Often links would not connect properly for some reason or the widgits, such as videos, would not appear where i wanted them to.  Once I had a handle on how to embed them properly, it became much easier, but making sure the links etc stayed working was very frustrating. This is often the problem when working with web 2.0, that the internet is unpredictable. For instance, sites can change constantly or sites become inaccesible for some reason.

4) Keeping a balance between Web 2.0 and information. I tried to incorporate as much web 2.0 tools as possible, but found I had to try and make sure I kept a balance between these tools, such as links and IM boxes, as well as information provided to the students. I needed to make sure that they understood what I wanted and the information they would need before they got distracted by the videos and links. The quality and quantity of the information provided is still important.

5) Making sure the links were logical and sequential. When I asked friends to look at my wiki and make sure it made sense, many got lost with the amount of links I had and which section they should be looking in. As a result I tried to cut down on anything that wasn’t neccessary, as student’s would most likely find too many links or pages confusing.

Blooms Taxonomy

Creating

There are many Web 2.0 applications on the internet today that enable a students to explore their creative side and thus access the highest level of Blooms Taxonomy. Examples of this include Zoho creator which allows people to create database applications incredibly easily and without the training in programming. One of the best ways for a student to learn how applications work is to create one of their own.

Evaluating and Analyising

As a part of Blooms learning, students need to evaluate the information given to them to decide how accurate and relevant it is. Sites such as Reddit are very useful for this as students can vote for which sites they find most useful and start to create a database of ones that they prefer. Reddit also displays the same story from multiple sources so that students can see the differences between them and learn that the same information can be portrayed very differently. This helps them learn to choose their information  and sources carefully.

In this way, we can see that it is possible for learning at the higher levels of Blooms taxonomy to occur easily in Web 2.0.

Classroom managment is entirely different when working with Web 2.0 in comparison to a normal classroom.

Teachers need to make sure that they:
1) Allow students the creativity and freedom to express themselves

2) Guide students in their work rather than directing them. If students get slightly off topic, quide them back, whilst allowing them some autonomy in their research or work

3) Help students create an Igoogle account, so that the students can keep track of all their web 2.0 applications and thus are more prepared for the lesson ahead.

4) Students must be allowed to work collaborativly. Therefore, quiet talking should be allowed and seating must be arranged accordinly to afford students the chance to work with others, rather than be isolated.

How do you encourage students to work collaborativly?

• Make sure the activity is fun and engaging so that students want to do the work to begin with

• Allow the students to actively socialise with one another so that they become more comfortable. Helping students to set up their on page such as Myspace or Facebook and then creating a network for them to link together is one such way.

• Students will work much better together is they have a firm understanding of the task at hand. If this is not understood, the group does not work as effectively.

• Help students create a wiki, such as pbwiki, so that when they work on assignments, they can post their information on the wiki and thus learn from one another.
• The same applies for del.icio.us. If students have access to one another’s links for assignments or class work, then they often work together to find the best ones.

The way in which a teacher conveys information to students has always been of the utmost importance as it can drastically change the effectiveness of the child’s learning. The theory of connectivism is incredibly important as shown in the following blog .In the past, teachers have relied heavily on handout instruction sheets or the child listening aurally to the teacher as they explain new topics. This is often hard for many students if they do not learn aurally or through writing, as a linguistic learner would. This leaves out the other 7 intelligences and thus an incredibly wide range of students who learn in these other ways. These intelligences (shown below) are incredibly important to consider when conveying information to students.

The increasing use of Web 2.0 in the classroom is one way to solve the problem of conveying information effectively to students. As students become increasingly technological, this web 2.0 approach becomes more appealing as technology is almost second nature to many children of today.

However, there are still many problems encountered as teachers learn to use these new technologies and appropriate situations to use them in. The teacher must maintain a high standard of individual work in the classroom at the same time as introducing students to the concept of collaborative group learning and technology as a new way to learn in the classroom and encouraging them to become active in their learning. Becoming active in their learning is incredibly important as social constructivism states that knowledge is not passively received but actively built up by the cognizing subject.

Teachers therefore need to focus on a few key areas when deciding how to convey new information to the student, such as: 

•   Does it allow for Gardner’s multiple intelligences?
• If the internet is used for conveying information, do the students have ready access to this resource?
• Are the students actively engaged with the work? 

Question such as these and many others must be taken into account when deciding how to deliver new information to students via web 2.0. However, when the teacher does decide to use many of the new technologies to deliver new information to students, it can have an incredible effect on how they learn. For example, when studying Ancient Egypt, rather than using handouts and having the students write an essay, teachers can use a video from Youtube and Google Earth to show where the places are, and then have students work together on a wiki to create a collaborative assignment. This encompasses many different styles of learning and requires the students to work together to answer questions and thus follows the idea of collaborative and constructivist learning. The students become active in their education rather than passive.

The following link is to a video discusses Gardners theory in relation to students and the emergence of digital learners. This new concept is incredibly important to remember when converying new information to students.

Pay Attention

This picture below hight lights the main points of the wikipedia article below it.

Characteristics of “Web 2.0″

While interested parties continue to debate the definition of a Web 2.0 application, a Web 2.0 website may exhibit some basic common characteristics. These might include:

• “Network as platform” — delivering (and allowing users to use) applications entirely through a browser. See also Web operating system.
• Users owning the data on a site and exercising control over that data.
• An architecture of participation that encourages users to add value to the application as they use it. This stands in sharp contrast to hierarchical access-control in applications, in which systems categorize users into roles with varying degrees of functionality.
• A rich, interactive, user-friendly interface based on Ajax or similar frameworks.
• Some social-networking aspects.

The impossibility of excluding group-members who don’t contribute to the provision of goods from sharing profits gives rise to the possibility that rational members will prefer to withhold their contribution of effort and free-ride on the contribution of others.
The concept of Web-as-participation-platform captures many of these characteristics. Bart Decrem, a founder and former CEO of Flock, calls Web 2.0 the “participatory Web” and regards the Web-as-information-source as Web 1.0.

If you are trying to teach a class about Web 2.0, this can be a useful Video for the students to watch. It teaches what Web 2.0 is and how it works.

YouTube is one of the fastest growing Web 2.0 applications on the net. It started as a place for people to post videos and grew into a multi-million dollar networking programme. People are using the programme in ways never imagined before; it is not unheard of for music executives and potential employers to search YouTube videos and their creators for potential employees of clients. It encompasses an incredibly diverse range of videos such as videos of lectures, ads, home videos, music clips and movies off camera phones, though it is not limited to these.

Some statistics i found on YouTube are included below:

· YouTube hosts over six million videos, growing at about 20 percent every month.
· The videos take up 45 terabytes of storage — about 5,000 home computers’ worth.
· The total time spent watching YouTube videos since it started last year is 9,305 years!
· The content requires several million dollars’ worth of bandwidth a month to transmit.

One of the most widely used features on web 2.0 is that of blogging. Blogging is a term that describes a site where someone can develop thoughts on posts that are arranged in chronological order. Blogs are often used to comment on food, sport, literature, politics, personal or business views. Some even act as a form of virtual diary. The use of Blogs is incredibly varied. The benifits of a blog is that you can post information on the net, edit it at any time and other people can see your thoughts and share their own on your site. One problem can be that of privacy. Anyone can see your thoughts if you dont make it a private account. Also, it is always in chronological order and so you can never change the order of the posts, which can be frustrating as it means you cant put it into a more logical order (such as grouping certain thoughts together).

Think about a problem
Plan a solution
Act on a solution
Review your solution