Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms

By Will Richardson

Book Overview

"We need a solid book explaining and illustrating and letting teachers know about these powerful tools. This book meets the need in an awesome way "
-Mike Muir, Director
Maine Center for Meaningful Engaged Learning

"This author is a gem It startles me to be ′pulled′ so happily through a text about these new Web tools in the context of good literacy instruction."
-Gary Graves, Senior Research and Evaluation Advisor, Technology in Education
Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory

Discover how to harness Web tools to motivate and update student reading, research, and communication

This book brings teachers a bold vision and on-the-ground Monday morning practicality. It will move educators to think differently about technology′s potential for strengthening students′ critical thinking, writing, reflection, and interactive learning. Will Richardson demystifies words like "blog," "wiki," and "aggregator" making classroom technology an easily accessible component of classroom research, writing, and learning.

This guide demonstrates how Web tools can generate exciting new learning formats, and explains how to apply these tools in the classroom to engage all students in a new world of synchronous information feeds and interactive learning. With detailed, simple explanations, definitions and how-tos, critical information on Internet safety, and helpful links, this exciting book opens an immense toolbox, with specific teaching applications for Web logs, the most widely adopted tool of the read/write Web Wikis, a collaborative Webspace for sharing published content Rich Site Summary (RSS), feeding specific content into the classroom Aggregators, collecting content generated via the RSS feed Social bookmarking, archiving specific Web addresses Online photo galleries

This book makes it possible for anyone, no matter how inexperienced, to harness this amazing technology for the classroom today

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1412927668
• ISBN13: 9781412927666
• Release Date: March 2006
• Publisher: Corwin Press
• Length: 168 Pages
• Weight: 0.12 lbs.
• Dimensions: 10.0" x 7.0" x 10.0"

Customer Reviews

Great for Educators!

As our students continue to advance technologically, this book assists teachers with the terminology of web 2.0 tools. It's clearly written and shares relevant examples of the use of the internet in the classroom. I have used this book as a text in a course and found it to be meaningful and applicable. For any teacher thinking about new ways to engage students through the use of technology, this is the book!

Awesome Book For Classroom Teachers

I'm not someone who necessarily "loves" technology, but with so many of my high school students using blogs and just spending so much of their time on the Internet, I decided to get up to speed. This book was recommended to me by friends who had seen the author speak, and I have to say that I'm simply amazed by how well this book lays the groundwork for these technologies and how clearly it points the way to get started. I've decided to start a blog to use as a place to reflect about my teaching, and I'm already looking forward to this fall to try some of the other great ideas in the book. Whatever you do, don't believe the one negative review in this list. This book is aimed at classroom educators who need to start understanding how important the Web is becoming to all of us. It's a great book, one that every single teacher should read.

tomorrow professor -- thumbs up

this is a great introduction to web 2.0 and some of the cool tools available. It has up-to-date information that allows the neophite to get up and running in no time. I have told many of my fellow ed majors about this book. It is a must for the bookselves of those studying to be our children's new teachers. Dive right in--the water's fine!

What's the big deal about Web 2.0?

I've dabbled with blogs and wikis for about a year now, but can honestly say I didn't see why everyone in Educational Technology was getting so excited. Now I understand! Will Richardson quickly turned me into a Read/Write web evangelist! He gives wonderful recommendations for good tools, excellent examples of use and a steady stream of ideas for how to best utilize these POWERFUL tools in classrooms. The book is a quick read, written by someone with a blog mentality. A chapter might take 20 minutes to read, but the additional, fabulous collection of well-research links takes another two hours to explore!

Worth every penny

Note: while there are some spoilers here, I will deliberately LEAVE THINGS OUT so you will have no choice to read his great book. I could not put it down and I learned so much, even though I've been Podcasting since September and Blogging (sort of) for two years. Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms by Will Richardson is a great resource for any teacher or instructional technologist who wants to integrate technology into the classroom. Will begins by quoting Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web - the vision was that it was a "read-write web" - with web users not only collecting information but creating it as well. In his book, Will gives many examples of how to do this: Blogs: great for class portals, an online filing cabinet, e-portfolios... but better: a collaborative space for students and teachers to react to questions and scenarios - all online where Will has arranged for his students to meet authors or students from other schools to discuss a topic. Student writing becomes authentic, relevant. Will recommends that teachers blog themselves before introducing blogs to their students (just like a teacher of writing should be a writer himself, or a reading teacher should read on her own). Will dedicates an entire chapter to "getting started" with blogs - with juicy tips and tricks, as well as resources for new bloggers. Wikis: after a discussion of the origin of the wiki (wiki-wiki - Hawaiian for "quick") and a discussion of the most well-known wiki, Wikipedia, Will discusses the uses for wikis in school: you can create an online text for your classroom, a lesson plan exchange for teachers, and he gives a good introduction to creating your own wiki using PBWiki. RSS: OK- this is where my brain began to melt. I was blown away by the difference between what I THOUGHT RSS was good for and all of the ideas that Will has for them. To quote his chapter on RSS: "I think it's the one technology that you should start using today, right now, this minute. And tomorrow, you should teach your students to use it." After reading this chapter I did, and I will. Seriously. This chapter was an epiphany for me. Podcasts: amateur radio, with lots of possibilities. There are many resources given in his book but the Education Podcast Network is the best known and a great place to start. Will gives some great tips on software to use like Audacity - and how to use Skype to record interviews (using software from http://www.powergramo.com ). I hate to sound like PBS's Reading Rainbow, but if you want to find out more, you really should buy and read his book. It is very well written, organized, and is an invaluable resource for any teacher willing to try technology in their classroom.