During the course of the year our IT classes will explore many Web 2.0 applications that we will learn about and use. These applications are many and quite varied. This section of the website will highlight the Web 2.0 applications that we are incorporating into our class this year.

Well, according to Wikipedia (which itself is a Web 2.0 phenomenon) Web 2.0 is:

"The term Web 2.0 is associated with web applications that facilitate participatory information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design,[1] and collaboration on the World Wide Web. A Web 2.0 site allows users to interact and collaborate with each other in a social media dialogue as creators (prosumers) of user-generated content in a virtual community, in contrast to websites where users (consumers) are limited to the passive viewing of content that was created for them. Examples of Web 2.0 include social networking sites, blogs, wikis, video sharing sites, hosted services, web applications, mashups and folksonomies."

The list of our Web 2.0 has to start out with Weebly. Weebly is the tool that is allowing me to create this website.  Weebly is actually an interactive website creation site that allows you to create websites and blogs using a drag & drop, widget-based interface. Weebly is free to use, and can be further enhanced by multiple add-ons if desired.  It is a great tool for teachers and students to build their own websites using CSS & HTML without actually having to know either.

Gmail is the dominant online email application on the web today. Each student is required to have a Gmail account for class correspondence.  Gmail is also essential because having a Gmail account also means that each student can access Google Docs.

Google Docs is an online suite of productivity tools that closely resembles and emulates Microsoft Office. The big advantage of Google Docs is that it is FREE. Users can also easily collaborate online with each other, even in real-time.

From Google:
"Google Docs is a suite of products that lets you create different kinds of documents, work on them in real time with other people, and store your documents and your other files -- all online, and all for free. With an Internet connection, you can access your documents and files from any computer, anywhere in the world. (There's even some work you can do without an Internet connection!)"

Keyboarding is an important skill set that students need to develop during their Middle School and High School years. Here at ISG we are using typingweb, which is a free online typing tutor that the students can access either at school or at home. More importantly, typingweb is adaptive to different national keyboard configurations so our students can use become "multi-lingual" with their keyboarding skills.

YouTube has far more to offer then silly videos of pet tricks or music video parodies. Today educators and students can use YouTube to access an incredible number of tutorials, documentaries, and other educational videos. Do a simple search for "Weebly Tutorial" or "Photoshop Tutorial" and you will literally find thousands of ready-made tutorials that can be watched. In addition, students and teachers can also post videos to YouTube if desired to help share information or to express themselves.  All in all, YouTube can be a tremendous asset to teaching if used properly.

We started our school year with Google Search Stories. I wanted to introduce a interactive, Web 2.0 application to the students right away to start the year off with a creative bang. We used Google Search Stories to have the students tell a 21st century version of the classic, "What did I do this summer." The student really loved the assignment and it was a perfect icebreaker to begin the year with.

Education can sometimes be fun. Some of our classes this year got a chance to check out Sploder and create an online video game for themselves. Overall it was a great opportunity for the students to engage in the process of investigation, planning, designing and creating in an online digital environment.

Presentations are a fact of life in school these days. Hundreds of books and thousands of web articles have argued the good and frequently bad of Microsoft's PowerPoint, which is the most frequently used presentation software in use today. As an alternative I introduced the students to Prezi, which is an online, cloud-based application that creates incredible zooming, twisting and "flying" presentations. Overall it was a huge hit with the students.  It's hard to describe really, so you'll simply have to check it out for yourselves.

Quizlet.com is an awesome online resource for studying. It is a central repository of literally hundreds of thousands of digital flash-cards that can be used on computers, tablets, mobile devices and smart phones. These digital flash-cards can be used for studying for the SAT, to the Periodic Table, to Foreign Languages, Who's Who in History and so on. Our students also created sets of their own based on their current studies, which they uploaded and shared to the Quizlet community

In our Digital Photography and Editing class we had the students create accounts on flickr. Flickr is a site that hosts millions of photos for sharing. The students were able to turn in assignments, see their peers work and share ideas using the Group function available on the site.

We had the opportunity for the students to work with mapping applications during 1st Semester. The students had to create a map of an area that they were quite familiar with. They then had to populate it with nearby attractions and points-of-interest. In addition they also had to embed directions from one location to another. Overall, it was a great exercise of the power of Google Maps and how it can be used in everyday life.