Discuss the new tools you have found...

1. http://www.webquest.org/search/index.php Here is a site that allows you to search by topic and comes up with lesson units on the topic. I searched genetics for example, a huge piece of my curriculum, and found a bunch of interactive sites on genetics and lesson plans that I could use. I also searched history and up came a load of sites on all different types of history.
2. http://www.animationlibrary.com/ The thought occurred to me that perhaps the students could add some animation to a presentation they create to enhance it. Here is a library of free animations that are simple and easy to use. This has the potential to become a distraction really but it's worth a try at least once!
3. http://www.dailyblogtips.com/create-a-widget-for-your-blog/ Here is a site that discusses widgets and how to create them. I think it would be cool for the students to create widgets on the classroom topic and watch that topic being discussed on the net. You can also create widgets on http://www.widgetbox.com If you had a class blog you could put different widgets on the blog as the topics change throughout the year.
4. Another thought I had was to teach a student to use news websites such as newsvine (http://www.newsvine.com) or digg (http://www.digg.com) where they can take a look at a large collection of different news stories and comment on them. This gives them a chance to think and develop an opinion as well as share it. You can customize the accounts on these pages to focus on certain news genres such as history or science, etc. I could have my students follow science news and comment on what interests them. This would be a good way for the students to see how science is being used in everyday life.

Your experiences and ideas for the web 2.0 programs introduced in this lesson:

1. I'm not in the classroom at the moment but if I was I would definitely have my students gather data and input it into gapminder to create a visualization of the data. We always graph our data out but this would be a fun and more engaging way of doing things. I have a unit where we collect data on wildlife and then have to present our findings and explain them. I'd like to have the students use an online presentation program such as sliderocket.com to create a presentation of their data and add their gapminder images into that program.
2. I'd like to try voicethread also. I think it would be challenging for the students to create a tutorial using voicethread. Say for example, how to create a line graph. They could find images and record text to explain this basic task. This would be good exposure to the program.
3. One last idea I have is to take the students into a lab and have them log onto newsvine or digg and check these sites out. I'd like them to become familiar with the sites and learn how to do things like create their own column of news that interests them and make comments. I think making the students aware of a resource like this helps them to start thinking and composing. Anytime you can get a student to write about something that interests them you're making progress right? So why not here??