Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms [Paperback]

If you are looking to add technology into your classroom, Will Richardson's book, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms, is a good place to start. The book takes the reader through a journey of possibilities to using web 2.0 tools in education. Each chapter was dedicated to a web 2.0 tool, from Weblogs to Social Networks (and many in-between)! Each chapter describes the web 2.0 tool and then gives examples of how others have used the tool in their classroom. On top of that Richardson also has examples you can actually go to on the Internet! I found that the real life examples reinforced the idea that teachers all over the world are incorporating technology into their classrooms. And it was nice to see how others were doing that.
I like how Richardson wrote the book for educators and he understands that not everyone is an expert at using technology. He constantly is mentioning that before jumping into using this in the classroom, you must first become involved yourself in the technology. Which is so true; you must first understand how to use technology and what this all means in the education world before expecting your students to. He provides guidelines and steps of how to incorporate web 2.0 tools into your classroom.
From this book I have built upon what I already know about web 2.0 tools and learned some new things. In fact while reading this book, a colleague of mine should be how to use Jing and Screencast to record and share a video from my computer. When I went home to read the next chapter of Will's book I learned even more about Jing and Screencast and how other teachers were using it. There was however one chapter that was completely new to me which was chapter five RSS. Like the other chapters in this book, Will starts off by explaining what RSS is and then gives suggestions of how to get involved with RSS. I have not had a chance to try setting up an RSS feed for myself, however it is something that I will be doing in the near future.
I do not consider myself an expert on technology, however I do feel comfortable using it, and believe one hundred percent that my students need to be taught how to use the technology we have available to their advantage. As Richardson points out in his book, we need to prepare our students for their future, they need to learn to read, write, and collaborate using the web. The web is a place that Richardson defines as a Read/Reflect/Write/Participate Web. Another point Richardson makes is that students are using these tools at home and they may not be using them properly. If taught in the classroom how to read, write, and collaborate with others properly, students are going to be successful in the future. Teachers do not need to become experts but they should have a general idea of the tools out there and how to use them in the classroom to benefit students.
This book is a great resource to build upon what you are already doing in the classroom or for teachers who are just starting to incorporate technology. I hope that you read this book and find at least one web 2.0 tool that you find so incredible that you want to try and then you will bring to your classroom and use with your students.

Reading this book you feel like your actually having a one-way conversation with someone who is teaching a lot of new and exciting stuff. Throughout the text the author is constantly giving tips and information to make the things he is telling you about easy to understand and even use. In chapter 6 the author talks about the advantages of using twitter and how it's possible to use twitter for troubleshooting as well as to hear about new and exciting ideas from other professionals. Diigo is also discussed and it is noted that because it allows you to bookmark websites and is a web application, you can use it from any computer anywhere because of your unique login. Delicious is a site that allows you to use specific tags that allow for your students to easily access and find the work. Chapter 7 is a discussion on Flickr and the possibilities that come with using it. Being able to annotate items within a picture allows individuals to see and discover what they are looking at. The idea of using tags with the pictures allows anyone, if the picture is public, to view the picture. Chapter 8 is about podcasting, video and screen casting, and live streaming and how these tools work and are used by many people. This chapter brings together all of the tools in this chapter from iTunes to UStream offer many opportunities to provide teachable videos as well as to have students create their own as well. This book has many valuable aspects for the world of educational technology and would be a great asset to any classroom teacher.

In this book I really thought that it was helpful for teachers and parents alike. There are always those tough questions that we face as adults when it comes to parenting and educating and this was a helpful resource. One of the main chapters that I focused on was chapter 3. This chapter is about how all parents, students, and administrators are clear on why this technology is being used in the classroom. For parents the first thing that they can do to make sure their child is safe is give their student permission to use this technology for school. Most schools send home an acceptable use sheet to sign and parents should be aware of this and make sure that they get one. Parents also need to communicate with teachers about what the teacher is doing to make sure that student privacy is protected. Parents need to make sure they talk to their children about never putting personal information on the blogs and the parents also need to know the process for reporting problems with blog content. Lastly as a parent they need to oversee the student's blog and then decide what to do with it at the end of the course. When creating a weblog with students always start small and work your way up. Blogger.com created by Google is one of the easiest weblogs for anyone to use, there is no perfect way to use a blog but this one is up there for ease of use and not a lot of confusion. As a teacher it is hard to track all of what your students are doing, however, you can follow your students and watch their posts. You can edit and have different templates and even add pictures to blogs as well.