Web 2.0 Sampler Workshop

Welcome to the Web 2.0 Sampler at the Madison Conference

Welcome to the Web 2.0 Sampler at the 23rd Annual Distance Teaching and Learning Conference in Madison, Wisconsin. We look forward to sharing with you some of the exciting new Web 2.0 technologies that can be used to enable and facilitate distance teaching and learning.

This is a full-day workshop for faculty, instructional technologists, designers, and others interested in Web 2.0, showcasing innovative uses of technology and innovative approaches to pedagogy in distance teaching and learning. We will focus on identifying principles of good practice in the application of these technologies. Hands-on work with the Web 2.0 applications will be emphasized. This session will be highly interactive. Participants will gain an in-depth understanding of a variety of new and emerging technologies and their application to the online learning environment.

Presenters:

Deb Antoine, Instructional Designer/Web Developer
Emily Welch, Instructional Designer/Web Developer
Ray Schroeder, Professor Emeritus/Director of OTEL
University of Illinois at Springfield

Preliminary Agenda:

8:30 Introductions: Presenters, Participants and Program Goals

The Web Is Us/ing Us!

Web 2.0 Big App on Campus!

9:30 Technology Overview - overview of each of our "baker's dozen" - and a few more. These will be interactive demonstration/discussions (there will be a break at ~10:30)

Team Assignment - Teams will be created at each table to work together in creating an instructional model using one, two or more Web 2.0 technologies in the afternoon session. Collaborative hands-on sessions will begin with team planning over lunch.

Lunch - Noon to 1:00 pm

Did You know?

Afternoon - Hands-on Web 2.0 Development

Tim Berners-Lee on Web 3.0 (the Semantic Web)

3:00 pm Each team will present their final product

Electronic (Web 2.0) polling to select the "best in class" award for most creative and instructionally sound application.

Prizes will be awarded!

What Is Web 2.0?

Originated in a conference between O'Reilly Publishers and MediaLive International, the term was coined in 2004 to described a whole new class of interactive applications that emerged after the dot-com bubble burst in 2001.

What is RSS?

RSS stands for really simple syndication (or rich site summary). It is the tool that enables instant sharing, notification and syndication of new and / or updated materials.

Blogs - Blogger

Web Logs or "blogs" are web pages that are generated with software that commonly puts postings in reverse chronological order. One common software program to create blogs is http://blogger.com - owned by Google. (a new blog is created every half second)

Sample application:

Journal blog - to collect and present student journal entries
Filter blog - to post a collection of items such as news stories, or as in this case, technologies

Online Learning Update
Google Search for Online Learning
Blog Search at Google
Sample Aggregation into Web Pages

RSS Aggregators

Yahoo! lists a plethora of RSS Aggregators, but increasingly they are built into browsers and other regular software.

Examples:

Internet Explorer 7
Firefox
Opera
Safari

Sample applications:
In classes with current events applications, students may gather relevant news reports and post comments, etc.
Faculty members may track new and emerging developments in their discipline.

Google Reader

Online Polling - PollPub.com

Create your own polls using text, images, audio, and/or video. Polls are useful for giving your students another avenue to engage in your course.

Organize group work by having students vote on topics or meeting times
Discover student interests on course topics (What would they like to explore further?)
Rate presentations
Mimic Gallop or other polls covered on the news
PollPub.com automatically creates a hyperlink and the code for embed polls in your blog, course site, Web site, or MySpace page.

Doodle, another online polling site, is designed specifically to assist in scheduling meeting times.

As of July 27, 2007, Blogger has an integrated polling feature that allows you to add a poll to the side bar of your blog.

PollPub.com VoteWhere are you staying?

Interactive Online Maps - Frappr! Maps

Frappr! Maps allow you and your students a unique (and simple) method to visualize one another. Anyone can add their name, photo and message directly on a Web page, blog, or course site embedded with Frappr!--no account creation is required. As the owner, you can find information on where and how frequently your students visit the map.

In online learning, Frappr! Maps could be used for:

Icebreaker - have your students enter their locations, pictures, and short introduction to help them get to know one another.

Use the map to create a visualization of your course material. Even better, have your students work collaboratively to create this learning resource for the class!
--> Have your students build a map of the works or theories they are studying. Load book covers, works of art, pictures, event names, significant dates.
--> Use the map to mark the locations of specific battles, peace treaties, etc. You could load photos of the individuals involved and enter specific dates or names.

According to Frappr.com, they are "the fourth largest map service behind Mapquest, Yahoo! Maps and Google Maps".

Wiki - PBwiki

One of the most versatile Web 2.0 applications is the Wiki.

Type of web site
Multiple people can easily add, remove, or edit the content
Uses versioning to track changes
Some require registration or a password for editing
Editing can be done through simplified HTML markup language or a WYSIWYG editor
Nice list of educational uses of wikis is hosted by Wikispaces
Largest and best-known wiki is Wikipedia
An edited and reviewed version of Wikipedia is emerging at Citizendium

Wiki uses:

Collaborate with colleagues on professional projects
Group projects, essays and reports
Space for free writing or journaling
Share resources – web sites, annotated bibliographies, models for assignments
Create a compendium of terms and concepts for the course to use as a study guide

PBwiki is representative of many wiki sites - offering free hosting for educational uses. It includes several templates: classroom, syllabus, and group project. PBwiki also offers ideas for instructional uses of wikis, as well as "how-to" videos for your students. In addition to basic wiki features, you can add widgets for spreadsheets and calendars, videos, and voice chat.

Try it out at our Web 2.0 Sampler Blog: http://madison23.pbwiki.com/

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) - Skype

Skype. This one of several Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) software programs that enables high quality audio computer-to-computer over the Internet.

Students may conference using Skype. One interesting feature is Skype-out that enables long distance calls to traditional phone numbers in many countries at a rate of less than three cents a minute.
Using utilities such as powergramo http://www.powergramo.com/, one may record conversations such as interviews over Skype for playback in classes.
-->Just open powergramo and Skype simultaneously. Make a call in Skype and powergramo automatically records the call!
With the Firefox Skype extension, phone numbers on Web sites turn into buttons which you can click to call from Skype.

Web Conferencing - VRoom

Synchronous communication through web conferencing is a powerful tool for distance teaching and learning. It can be used many ways:

Electronic office hours
Planning sessions
Discussion sessions

Shared whiteboard, typed chat room, and other features add value to this free Web 2.0 application.

Virtual Worlds

There are more than three dozen virtual worlds that are in used in educational applications. Best known for Education is Second Life.

Second Life Education Information Web Page
Croquet(Open Source 3D Virtual World)
ActiveWorlds

Google Applications

Google provides a wide range of online Web 2.0 applications.

Google Docs is a suite of applications that provide shared word processing, spreadsheet, and (soon) presentations (ppt-like).
-->Export to PDF, import documents
Google Calendar provides a great shared calendaring application.
-->Upload calendar events in the iCal or .csv format (Add > Import Calendar)
-->View one, two, or more calendars at a time
Google Page Creator offers WYSIWYG editing to an instantly-hosted web site
Google Scholar is a great way to search for peer-reviewed publications.

Zoho Suite of Applications

Zoho provides a great suite of applications from word processing to projects and many more. Most are available at no charge.

Zoho Writer
Zoho Sheet
Zoho Meeting
Zoho Notebook
Zoho Planner
Zoho Creator - online forms linked to online databases
Zoho Chat

Online Storage - XDrive

A helpful application is to store information online behind password protection.

Handouts for students - a virtual electronic reserve
Shared documents in progress

Visual Search Engine - Kartoo

A different approach to displaying metasearches. Kartoo draws links among sites and provides a dynamic graphical display.

Podcasting - Podomatic

Podomatic provides free online creation and hosting of up to 250 MB.

The Freesound Project
Part of Creative Commons allows use of sounds for podcasting for education.

Tool Factory Podcasting provides a great $99 "enhanced" podcasting tool for windows.

Profcast is a $60 tool for Mac OS-X.

How To Create a Podcast for Your Online Course

Give it a listen!

Brief example of podcast creation with Tool Factory Podcasting

Enjoy! -- Web Sampler 2.0 Participants

iTunes

Tutorial on Finding Free Podcasts on iTunes

Photo Sharing - Flicker

Photo sharing online is a great way to distribute examples of artwork and geographic locations.

Flickr Related Tag Browser

Shared Bookmarks - del.icio.us

A great tool for sharing lists of web sites. For example, see this List of Top 100 Tools for Learning!

Keep track of bookmarks for yourself
Create lists of relevant links for your students (and share them!)
See what other people are bookmarking

del.icio.us uses folksonomy, or tagging, for tracking, grouping, and searching bookmarks. Folksonomy is a user-generated taxonomy used to categorize and retrieve Web pages, photographs, Web links and other web content using open ended labels called tags. It improves searches by allowing users to label information with their own language.

Electronic Portfolios (e-portfolios)

According to Wikipedia:
"An electronic portfolio, also known as an e-portfolio or digital portfolio, is a collection of electronic evidence assembled and managed by a user, usually on the Web. Such electronic evidence may include inputted text, electronic files, i mages, multimedia, blog entries, and hyperlinks. E-portfolios are both demonstrations of the user's abilities and platforms for self-expression, and, if they are online, they can be maintained dynamically over time. Some e-portfolio applications permit varying degrees of audience access, so the same portfolio might be used for multiple purposes."

"Authentic Assessment with Electronic Portfolios Using Common Software and Web 2.0 Tools"

Protopage