Scootle

Google Tools (Module 3)

Google suite of tools (Docs, Presentation, Forms, Draw) are free to use and have exciting collaborative features as well as the great benefit of automatically saving to Drive almost instantaneously- a great benefit for primary school students who have a habit of "losing" their work! The ability for students to share their work with their teacher (for drafting or submission) is also another neat feature.

Google Docs is the alternative to MS Word. If a Google Doc is created and shared among classmates, it becomes an easy to use collaborative tool. I have found that if the document is concurrently displayed on the class whiteboard (as students are independently or in groups adding to the doc on laptops), it serves as a great motivation because no group wants to be the one who has contributed the least. If you're using a doc and planning to have multiple editors at once, it is important to insert a table so that each student (or group) has their own working space and isn't writing over the top of others!

Google Presentation is the alternative to PowerPoint and has nearly all of the same features and functionality except inserting sound (I think?). So students who are familiar with MS, don't need to re-learn a great deal.

Google Forms has an absolute multitude of possible uses from both a teacher and student point of view. As a teacher I have used it to welcome students to class (holidays, likes/dislikes etc survey), complete a responsible use of ICT agreement and intend on using it for assessment. Students could have great fun using Forms to collect data for Maths units on surveys/data/graphing etc.

Blogger (Module 2)

Blogging has a plethora of classroom uses and I can recommend "Blogger" as the most user friendly tool, particularly as it is integrated into the Google suite. This means students (and staff) with a Google account do not need to create a new username/password.

I believe blogging is essential in your classroom! It creates a genuine audience for student writing (therefore increases motivation), encourages collaboration, encourages a sense of class community and "commenting" encourages critical thinking and expressing of opinions. Wham...start blogging!

Click here for an example of using blogging in the classroom (Upper Primary).

Below are some help videos I created for students to help them get started with Blogger:

Welcome to Web 2.0 Tools (Module 1)

Hi and welcome to my Web 2.0 Blog! I'm from sunny Mt Isa.

Module 1 gave an overview of Web 2.0 tools. As a classroom teacher I  have found that it is important to master a few Web 2.0 tools rather than try to use everyone of them! Google Apps is now the primary focus and it is ideal if all Web 2 tools in the classroom use an integrated Google login. Another thing that I think is important is to keep abreast of new Web 2 tools, as there are constantly new and exciting tools coming out- various blogs can be found online that keep you up to date.