Website of the Week: Edutopia

I know...I know...you don't have another minute to spend looking at websites. By the time you prepare the lessons, grade the papers, take care of administrative paperwork, and all the rest of the million tasks on your To Do list, you are DONE.

Do me a  favor: find ten minutes and go check out this website.

Edutopia: What Works in Education

If you only have time to visit one website, this is the one to choose. Founded by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, you will find lesson plans, videos, blogs, articles, webinars, strategies and ideas, quizzes and polls, and a huge community of people who are just as concerned about education as you are. If you can't find something of interest here, you should stop looking!

While you're at it, why not take the tech-savvy quiz and see how you rank?

How Tech-Savvy Are You?

Let me know what you think of the site and share any special gems you find with all of us!

What the Heck IS Web 2.0?

Okay, so if you're as old as I am and you've had a computer for more than a while, you probably remember getting on the Internet for the first time. You could put in an address, go to a webpage, and look at things. Ooh! Ahh!

And that was ALL you could do.

If you had a question about something you read or you thought the page owner had misinformation or you wanted to leave a comment, you were out of luck. You could look, but you couldn't participate.
THAT was Web 1.0.

Today's web is different in three significant ways:

• First, it is comprised of tons of user-made and user-contributed content. Are you familiar with Wikipedia? Podcasts? YouTube? Flickr? These are only a few of the many ways you can become a contributor to the web. You can share your ideas in a blog, your knowledge and expertise in a wiki, your photos at a photo-sharing site like Flickr!

• Next, today's web offers users an unprecedented number of web-based applications. What does that mean? It means that you are not buying and/or installing software on your computer. Instead, you open your browser, head to a website, and you are able to do whatever task you want to right there. An example of this would be an online typing tutor or a blogging website, like Blogger :) As a bonus, many, if not most, web-based applications are free or low-cost.

• Finally, Web 2.0 offers rich social interaction. Whether it's MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, or Plurk, or any of hundreds of other tools, you can socialize, collaborate, comment, and interact in ways that were not possible a decade ago.

And THAT'S Web 2.0!

In an upcoming post, I'll tell you a little about Web 2.0 and Education...and how they just may be perfect together!

And Now A Word From Our Sponsors...

our students!

Have a look at this video about how students expect to learn:



Are you meeting these expectations? If not, why not? Do you feel unprepared? Unequipped? You're probably not alone.

Many teachers today are digital immigrants--that is, we didn't grow up with all of the technological tools that students have now. Students today are thought to be digital natives which I'll talk more about in an upcoming post.

Regardless of whether we are immigrants or natives, technology skills are something our students will need in order to be prepared for their futures-- and we all know it. The question is: How do we get up to speed with technology so that we feel like we know as much as the kids do? How do we integrate technology into what we are currently doing in the classroom?

Here's some insight from your colleagues--fellow teachers:




So based on these two videos, what do YOU think about teaching and integrating technology in your classroom? Sharing is certainly a first step--so feel free to leave some drops of Whoop-Tech (comments) below!