Assignment 5

The Lemon Grove School district established a technology-based educational environment online between schools and students homes. This created a collaborative environment in which students, teachers and parents can cooperate in the learning process. By allowing students to work together on writing/reading projects, Wiki’s are used as a means to promote thinking and share knowledge.
Lessons become more exciting and challenging when educators integrate Web 2.0 tools into their lessons. Students become more engaged when teachers utilize these tools. Lessons become more than just recitation and students are more likely to retain information when they are engaged. Students that are engaged in creating movies, news broadcasts, or collaborating with writing projects will find deeper meaning in the lessons.
Using these tools as a way for students to collaborate would be very beneficial for student learning. Within an art lesson, students would be able to comment each other’s pieces not just in the classroom but also outside of it. Students could post their artwork online so others could view it and post comments. From there, they could make changes and the lesson would be a work in progress. This approach would provide the students with a much more realistic view of the creation of a piece of art. They would better understand the evolution of artwork.
In order to use the Web 2.0 tools mentioned in Chapter 4, as well as any other Web 2.0 tools, teachers must be literate in their specific uses. Teachers in this chapter are good examples of educators effectively using Web 2.0 tools and being literate in the digital tools of the 21st Century.