Web 2.0 encompasses a vast array of tools, including weblogs (blogs), wikis, social networks, and podcasts, that empower its users to move beyond the title of receivers of information and acquire the label of producers. Students of younger generations will inevitably be better
equipped than their teachers and parents to maneuver and manipulate these emerging technologies to their benefit. Educators that grapple with these technologies and devote time and energy into understanding them, however, can meet students on a virtual middle ground where they can craft lesson plans that incorporate these technologies in hopes of building content comprehension and sharpening literacy skills. The percentage of American students between the ages of 12 and 17 reportedly using the Internet has steadily risen from 73% in 2000 to 93% in 2006 (Lenhart, Madden, Macgill, & Smith, 2007). As these students begin to explore various Web 2.0 tools in their homes and at their libraries, they will certainly experiment with producing and publicly posting text, images, audio, and video online. Blogging in the classroom presents educators with a unique opportunity to enable students to engage with course content, individually or cooperatively, in seemingly limitless ways.When I get back from spring break, I am going to begin a two-week lesson on technology in the classroom by exposing my students to multiple forms of Web 2.0 and educational technology tools. More details to come.
If you were planning a unit on technology in a 10th grade 21st-century English classroom, what issues and tools would you discuss for their benefit?
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Image Citation:
What's All That Networking Stuff Called? Retrieved on March 11, 2008, from http://support.morehouse.edu/whatis-network/patch-cord-ethernet-copper.jpg
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