What is it?
This feature is used to create surveys as a way of gathering data and opinions from users. These are presented in a standard format on the world wide Web.
What is it used for?
This is a convenient way to build surveys and collect information online.
How would a teacher use it effectively?
Instructors could use this feature to conduct a survey of their student cohort.
How would a learner use it effectively?
Students can participate in surveys where questions have been set by their lecturer.
Key features:
These surveys are usually created through a web browser so there is no need for the user to have computing or programming expertise. Professional looking surveys can be created quickly and usually there is nothing to download, install or maintain as the services are web hosted. Results are generally available in various reporting formats such as Microsoft Excel.
What is it?
A blog (an abridgment of the term web log) is a website, usually maintained by an individual, with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video.
What is it used for?
Blogs are used to communicate, present, personalise, and share information online.
How would a teacher use it effectively?
Relevant blogs are a useful way to keep up to date with what is happening in your subject area and for research purposes. Instructors can also use them to communicate with students.
How would a learner use it effectively?
Students can use blogs to keep a journal of their progress on a course or to follow information from other students or lecturers.
Key features:
Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries.
What is it?
A wiki is a collection of web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content, using a simplified markup language.
What is it used for?
A wiki is used as a collaborative writing tool and for disseminating information. Wikis are usually community based. The most well-known example would be Wikipedia.
How would a teacher use it effectively?
Wikis are a valuable online information resource for instructors, and can be used with a student cohort to create a collaborative resource that all students can participate in editing.
How would a learner use it effectively?
Students can amend and append information to a class wiki, or set up their own wiki for project groups.
Key features:
Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites.
What is it?
Electronic books are course texts that can be viewed online or printed out.
What is it used for?
Course Texts, reading lists or recommended readings can be provided online or within an online course area as E-books.
How would a teacher use it effectively?
Instructors can use E-books to distribute course texts to their student cohort.
How would a learner use it effectively?
Students can read course texts within their own course area.
Key features:
Text can be easily searched and cross-referenced and can be enhanced with hyperlinks and links to other relevant resources.
What is it?
A screencast is a digital recording of actions taken on a computer screen, often with accompanying narration. It is also known as a video screen capture. It is essentially a movie of what is happening on a monitor.
What is it used for?
Screencasts are often used as tutorials or instructions of how to perform certain actions or operate certain programs on a computer.
How would a teacher use it effectively?
Screencasts are especially valuable in training contexts where instructors want to help students learn how to use a particular tool or piece of software by showing them how an expert uses them.
How would a learner use it effectively?
Students can use screencasts to view tutorials or demos of how to best use software.
Key features:
Some screencast tools also allow for annotation (both text and audio) so that instructors can make these more educationally valuable.
What is it?
A social network service focuses on building online communities of people who may share interests and activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others.
What is it used for?
Online communities such as MySpace, Facebook, Bebo and Ning are examples of popular social networks where groups exchange messages and catch up with others.
How would a teacher use it effectively?
Teachers can use social networking to build an online community for their student cohort.
How would a learner use it effectively?
Students can use social networks to communicate with their classmates and catch up online.
Key features:
Most social network services are web-based and provide a variety of ways for users to interact, such as e-mail and instant messaging services. Social networking has created powerful new ways to communicate and share information.
What is it?
ocial bookmarking is a method for Internet users to store, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of web pages on the Internet with the help of metadata.
What is it used for?
Users can share bookmarking resources with others using a social bookmarking site such as del.icio.us. Instead of bookmarks being stored locally on one computer, they are stored on the Internet.
How would a teacher use it effectively?
Teachers can use social bookmarking services such as Del.icio.us, Digg, reddit, or StumbleUpon to share relevant bookmarks of online resources with their cohort.
How would a learner use it effectively?
Learners can use social bookmarks to collaborate and share online resources with their class.
Key features:
Social bookmarking allows collaborative tagging of relevant resources for viewing/use by others.
What is it?
Digital media, audio, video and the tools which are used to create these have transformed the internet from a primarily text-based environment to something much richer, that engages more of the senses.
What is it used for?
Most digital audio on the web is shared in the form of podcasts. (Podcasts are audio broadcasts that have been converted to an MP3 file or other audio file format for playback in a digital music player or via a computer). Creating digital media is becoming easier, with mobile phones and similar tools that can take pictures, capture audio and video, and creating rich media is becoming increasingly commonplace. Distributing the material is also becoming simpler using services such as Flickr, YouTube and iTunes.
How would a teacher use it effectively?
In their most basic form, digital audio, video and images can be used to communicate with students as an alternative to text, either for accessibility reasons or to accommodate learning styles or preferences. Audio or video recordings of lectures can free up face-to-face time with students for discussion or problem-solving.
How would a learner use it effectively?
Students may find online learning material more engaging if it includes audio or video material.
Key features:
Audio and video can be used to enhance and enrich the online learning experience.
What is it?
VoIP stands for Voice-over-Internet Protocol. It refers to the transmission of voice via the Internet using computer and mobile devices. Often it is used to describe making telephone or telephone/video calls over the Internet.
What is it used for?
It is used as an online voice communicaton tool – Skype being a popular provider of this service.
How would a teacher use it effectively?
Teachers can use VoIP to add a voice to an online classroom.
How would a learner use it effectively?
Students can use VoIP to communicate vocally online to add a more personal, community feel to an online classroom.
Key features:
Voice communication allows for more effective, personal online communication and builds a sense of an online community.
What is it?
A podcast is a series of digital-media files which are distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds for playback on portable media players and computers. The term podcast, like broadcast, can refer either to the series of content itself or to the method by which it is syndicated; the latter is also called podcasting. The host or author of a podcast is often called a podcaster.
What is it used for?
Podcasts enable students and teachers to share information with anyone at any time. The University of Ulster provides the tool Wimba Podcaster within its VLE, WebCT.
How would a teacher use it effectively?
Podcasts can be a tool for teachers or administrators to communicate information about the curriculum, assignments and other information. Teachers may also create podcasts to be used as a preparation tool for students.
How would a learner use it effectively?
An absent student can download a podcast of a recorded lesson. Podcasting can also be a publishing tool for student oral presentations.
Key features:
Students can access the material either on- or off- campus and, by downloading it to a portable media device (such as an iPod) can listen to or view the material anywhere at a time to suit themselves. This service is particularly valuable for part-time and distance learners.
What is it?
An RLO (reusable learning object) is a resource, usually digital and web-based, that can be used and re-used to support learning.
What is it used for?
RLOs are intended to be shared with other teachers, either for use in their own teaching (with or without modifications) or as a source of inspiration when designing learning activities of their own.
How would a teacher use it effectively?
Suitable and relevant RLOs are intended for use within a particular learning session. Teachers can search through a database to find suitable RLOs for their particular area of teaching.
Key features:
RLOs save time, as instructors are re-using relevant resources rather than recreating them.
http://www.commoncraft.com/rss_plain_english
What is it?
RSS is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines, and podcasts in a standardized format. An RSS document (which is called a feed, web feed, or channel) contains either a summary of content from an associated web site or the full text.
What is it used for?
RSS makes it possible for people to keep up with web sites in an automated manner that can be piped into special programs, like Google Reader or filtered displays. Usually, a person would read all their RSS feeds of updated content via one reader program
How would a teacher use it effectively?
Lecturers can use RSS as a research tool to keep up to date with developments in their field, by subscribing to different RSS feeds of websites and blogs. RSS feeds could also be used to send announcements to students.
How would a learner use it effectively?
Students can use RSS feeds as a research tool, in order to gather the latest information (news and/or research data) on the topic which they are studying.
Key features:
The benefit of RSS is the aggregation of content from multiple web sources in one place, rather than a user having to go to each website individually to search for new content.
What is it?
Instant messaging (IM) allows participants to conduct a discussion over the Internet, using instant messaging software. It is known as synchronous communication, meaning both parties are connected simultaneously and chat in real time.
What is it used for?
Originally, only text-based communications were possible; now, webcams enable participants in chat rooms such as Windows Messenger to see and talk to each other, while Skype and similar tools permit telephone communications over the Internet (either free or at considerably cheaper rates than conventional telephony). Participants can also exchange files, images and Web links to illustrate the discussion. The University of Ulster provides the Instant Messaging environment Wimba Pronto within WebCT.
How would a teacher use it effectively?
Teachers will find instant messaging useful for mentoring online learning and for students to collaborate on group work. Instant messaging offers a heightened social presence especially for distance/remote students.
How would a learner use it effectively?
Students can use instant messaging to communicate and collaborate with their online cohort.
Key features:
Instant messaging is easy to use, communication takes place in real time, so it is very fast, and invites aninstant response. It can be used as a collaborative tool for an online course.
**************************************************************************
Wireless mobile devices encorporated in Web 2 provide a great resource in Teaching and Learning. In today’s ever changing digital world, technology used to its potential can enhance our way of teaching and learning. It is our duty to discover this potential and harness it, to give us the necessary tools in education. Our ever changing society blogs, chats, uses facebook and exchanges ideas, thoughts and information over the web and wireless devices. This is the way society today interacts, and it is todays language. For education to move on it has to grasp the potential within these devices and learn to use them accordingly, otherwise we as educators will be teaching in a dead language. Teaching and learning has to be re-thought using and harnessing the potentials of Web2.
