Web+2.0+tools

toc =Web 2.0 Explained=

Web 2.0
 A buzzword summing up the latest [|generation] of Internet technology. Typically refers to technology allowing for easy uploading of content to websites. Go to [|http://www.go2web20.net]  for a listing of available web 2.0 tools

Aggregation and Feed Readers
Gathering information from multiple web sites, typically via RSS. Aggregation lets web sites remix the information from multiple web sites, for example by republishing all the news related to a particular keyword. Any website displaying the RSS symbol can be accesses via an aggregator or feed reader



[|Blog]
Originally short for "weblog", it is just a web page that contains entries in reverse chronological order, with the most recent entry on top. But blogging has taken off because the explosion in blogging software has turned blogging into one of the easiest ways for people to maintain a constantly updated web presence. In addition to the classic text blog, we now have photo blogs (consisting of uploaded photos), audio blogs (a.k.a. "podcasts") and video blogs (which consist of regularly uploaded video files). 

Podcast
A radio-style audio program designed to be listened to either on the web or using an audio MP3 player like an iPod. Can be listened to live or as archived recordings. Available from services like Apple iTunes, AMP and BlogTalkRadio. Content can be almost anything, from music to news to dramatic performance.

[|Social Bookmarking]
A user-defined taxonomy system for bookmarks. Such a taxonomy is sometimes called a folksonomy and the bookmarks are referred to as tags. Unlike storing bookmarks in a folder on your computer, tagged pages are stored on the Web and can be accessed from any computer. Web sites dedicated to social bookmarking,, provide users with a place to store, categorize, annotate and share favorite Web pages and files making them a great way to discover new sites or colleagues who share your interests.



Social Networking
Social networking sites help people discover new friends or colleagues by illuminating shared interests, related skills, or a common geographic location.



Tags
Keywords that describe the content of a web site, bookmark, photo or blog post. You can assign multiple tags to the same online resource, and different people can assign different tags to the same resource. Tag-enabled web services include social bookmarking sites (like del.icio.us), photo sharing sites (like Flickr) and blog tracking sites (like Technorati). Tags provide a useful way of organizing, retrieving and discovering information.

Wiki
A collaboratively edited web page. Wikis are frequently used to allow people to write a document together, or to share reference material that lets colleagues or even members of the public contribute content.

Collaborative Documents
Online documents which can be edited by a number of people at the same time.



Image and Video Sharing
Many web 2.0 applications allow for the sharing of [|images], video and sound files. Some are designed specifically for this.



Microblogging
The practice of sending brief posts (140 to 200 characters) to a personal blog on a microblogging Web site. Microposts can be made public on a Web site and/or distributed to a private group of subscribers, who can read the posts online, as an instant message or as a text message.



A wiki is simply a web site to which anyone can contribute without any special technical knowledge or tools. All you need is a computer with an Internet connection. One famous example is Wiki-pedia, an online encyclopedia with no “authors” but millions of contributors and editors.

** W **hat is the difference [|between] a wiki and a blog?
A blog, or web log, shares writing and multimedia content in the form of “posts” (starting point entries) and “comments” (responses to the posts). While commenting, and even posting, are open to the members of the blog or the general public, no one is able to change a comment or post made by another. The usual format is post-comment-comment-comment, and so on. For this reason, blogs are often the vehicle of choice to express individual opinions. A wiki has a far more open structure and allows others to change what one person has written.

The Teachers First website describe wikis and blogs in more detail along with lots of ideas for how to use them in the classroom.

http://www.teachersfirst.com/content/wiki/

How do I use a wiki?
The Teachers First website has lots of ideas but in my experience the most successful classroom based wikis are those that have the greatest level of student participation. The least successful are those that are created by teachers as a repository for worksheets.

How do I make a wiki?
I have opted to use wikispaces www.wikispaces.com as the host for my wikis and recommend them to teachers. They offer add free and private wikis to schools for no charge.

This link takes you to a step by step video guide showing how to set up a wikispace just like this one. http://www.wikispaces.com/site/tour#introduction Use the 'Choose a tour' drop down menu to learn more.

The wikispaces help menu [|http://www.wikispaces.com/help index] gives access to more detailed instructions.

Hints, tips and explanations
To create a new wiki for classroom use make sure that you go to www.wikispaces.com/site/for/teachers This will give you access to ad free wikis and private wikispaces without paying.

**Wiki Name**
The wiki name becomes part of your web address and so needs to have no spaces (use underscore if you need to) and capital letter will be changed to lowercase.

**Wiki Permissions**
A public wiki can be viewed and edited by anyone - although you can lock pages to prevent changes. The advantage is that nobody needs a wikispaces username or password, so parents and others can view your class wiki.

A protected wiki can be viewed by everyone but only members of this wiki can make changes. This is useful when you want to see who has made changes or added content - their username will be listed on the 'History' page. When all users have individual usernames you will find it much easier to hold online discussions on your wiki.

A private wiki can only be viewed by its members so they are ideal for activities where you would like students to post personal details and photographs of themselves.

**Wiki Type**
Make sure that you select K-12 from the drop down menu.

**Undoing changes**
Don't worry about having your wiki open for others to make changes. If you do not like what they have done you can simply reset your wiki to how it looked at a previous date or time. Click on the History page to do this.

**Creating accounts for your students**
Students can create their own accounts at www.wikispaces.com or you can simply create a whole class set and issue everyone with a username and password. Once you have created your wiki click on the Manage Space button (top left of your page) and choose [|User Creator] Hint: If your students create their own usernames and then request permission to join your wiki make sure you tell them to include their real name in the request message. That way you can record usernames against real names in your mark [|book]

Take control of the menu
The navigation bar on the left hand side of your wikipages is set to automatically create an alphabetical list of any pages that your create. At some stage you will find this frustrating and wish that you could organise it yourself. Its easy. Simply click on the 'edit navigation' link at the bottom of the menu and delete the include page list widget - the box that looks like this Now you will need to manually create your menu and the links to your pages. Don't panic, its easy. Use the button to make a hyperlink. If you type the name of an existing page and click on the link button it will automatically find the page - just click OK to make the link. If you type a page name that does not exist it will create the page for you.

**Wikis on steroids!**
Lenva Shearing has made this wiki with lots of ways to improve your wiki. http://gettingtrickywithwikis.wikispaces.com/

On this wiki I have created 'The Sandpit' page simply to play in. Anything that looks cool I put in here just to try it out. Take a look at youtube videos embeded in the wiki, windows in Wordle, Flickr gadjets and more. I am sure some of it will be useful in the classroom.