Web 2.0 Tutorial

I recently ran across a link to a Web 2.0 tutorial for teachers. The author explains what Web 2.0 is and also discusses blogs, wikis, RSS feeds, and social bookmarks. For each of these applications, he includes lists of and/or links to popular tools of that type, educational benefits, classroom applications, concerns and solutions, real-world examples from teachers, further reading, and tutorials (including videos).

Ning in Education

On August 3, we held an organizing meeting for Sloan-C SL-NET (Second Life - Networking Education and Technology). The suggestion was made that we should have some place on the web where we could have asynchronous discussions.

Sloan-C's Moodle-based community pages seems the obvious choice until a friend I met through Second Life suggested I look at Ning, which provide free (and premium) social-networking sites. He pointed me to the Classroom 2.0 social network, which has 2408 members right now.

This seemed ideal, so I created the Sloan-C SL-NET social network. The primary advantages over Moodle are its public visibility, the ability of members to start forums and form groups, and the accessibility of RSS feeds. I'm using a Ning site for a hybrid technical writing class I'm teaching this fall. (It's private for the obvious reasons.) I've also joined a social network for educators who are using Ning in education.