// Langwitches Blog

Title: Engage Young Learners with Web 2.0 Tools
Presenter: Gail Lovely
Description:  Discover curriculum-rich possibilities of engaging Web 2.0 tools like Skype, YackPack, Wikis, and VoiceThread in primary classrooms. Explore real learning ideas, not just “Gee Whiz!”

lovelytcea09.wetpaint.com

Moving from Computer as a toy to computer as a tool
Younger students should be encouraged to work in pairs.
Get headset splitters.
Teach [...]

I learned from Jane’s E-Learning Pick fo the Day about a cool little Twitter site:
Twitter Sheep
Enter your Twitter username and password and it will create a Wordle-like cloud of the bio profiles of your followers.

This is a word cloud generated from the bios of @langwitches’ followers.

All of our teachers are administrators of their own wordpress blog (hosted on our domain) As part of our monthly workshops, the past week “Embedding Media on Your Blog” was offered.
The definition of “embedding” is :
To enclose snugly or firmly.
To cause to be an integral part of a surrounding whole
In the world of our classroom [...]

Muchísimas gracias a la dirección de la Goethe Schule en Buenos Aires, Argentina por darme la oportunidad de hablar con ellos acerca de la integración de tecnología y la alfabetización en el siglo XXI.
Gracias a Verónica D. y Heidi M. por organizar ese encuentro. Ich freue mich schon auf gemeinsame Projekte!

¿Qué es un Instructional Technologist?

La [...]

Storytelling has existed since the beginning of time as a form of human interaction. It evolved from cave paintings and oral transmission of how and why our people existed and as an explanation of the world around us to troubadours who traveled the country to inform others of news and happenings of places and people [...]

Michele Martin posts on her Bamboo Project Blog the Web 2.0 Wednesday Challenge
One of the beauties of Web 2.0 is how it connects us to people from all over the world, in different cultures with different ways of life. This gives us wonderful opportunities to learn from each other. So here’s this week’s activity:
Use a [...]

I wanted to share, but also highlight for my own sake, the following PowerPoint that was created by datruss on Slideshare.net.
I like the point this presentation makes. Teachers can continue to:

teach the way educational institutions have taught for the last 100 years
ignore new tools that will bring the world to their students
tell themselves that materials [...]

Yesterday, during our last technology professional development workshop of the year, I introduced a group of our elementary school faculty to the concept of a custom Google Search Engine. Everyone present was invited to be a collaborator and created (if they did not have one) or signed into their google account. I created a step-by-step [...]

Global Work Ethic- You can design your own assignments, nobody tells you what you do. You are in charge of your own learning.
Questions :

Who should we look to as key agents of change?
The biggest barrier of students using technology?
Have you visited a school outside of the US?
Do you believe your students will be competing with [...]

Here is another list as promised. I wanted to point out my Top Ten Videos of 2007. I have placed these in my favorites on YouTube and have used them in the classroom with my elementary school students or with teachers during professional development opportunities. Here they are in NO particular order.

A Vision of [...]