web+2.0

[|Kathy Schrock's web 2.0 page]

Well, I suppose my web 2.0 site isn't as fancy or bells and whistles as some, but I can see numerous applications for it in my classroom, now that I understand it better. It's [|googledocs]. This site can be used for collaborative writing, peer editing, and other circumstances where group work is required. It would eliminate a lot of headaches for group members and for me. For example, in my Interpersonal Communications class, students have to create a Powerpoint presentation about a culture. Every semester, I have students complaining because their partner(s) are gone and the presentation is saved on the absentee's jump drive or server file. This way, students could work on the final product independently and contribute to the final product independent of one another. Another possibility would be in American Literature, where I have had students read about an early American author and his/her work independently, and then contribute to a presentation (Powerpoint) about the early American authors. I think this would save me a ton of time and headache!

So, one of the downsides of this site is that students must have an email account to access the site. This may be problematic for me, but I think I could have email accounts created at school for kids in a certain class, or I could use another site like epals.com. Another possible downfall is that the site itself isn't very "pretty," so it's not going to hold a lot of visual appeal for the kids. Conversely, for the applications I talked about above, it's great because students can create their presentations in googledocs, or they can even upload slides from other applications (ie. Powerpoint). Another potential problem I can see in the Googledocs setup is that when students go to "share" a document, the option exists for "collaborators" to invite others to the document, as well as for mailing lists to be created, so students would have to be prepared carefully about privacy and who to "share" with.

I'd give the site a 4 out of 5 stars, more for the potential pitfalls in a classroom setting than for any problems with the site itself.