The education of tomorrow...

With the advance of today’s technologies, our students of tomorrow need to be on the ball with these innovative technologies and work them from early childhood.I personally think the educational curriculum needs to be changed to more intensively include new technologies and their applications. I know, some may not agree that steering young children to technology will develop a bias toward those types of jobs but the truth is that this is where the future is going. Additionally, as you will see below, a number of web 2.0 tools can be used to further a child’s interest in things like art and literature. As Prof. Bliss proved to us in our first session, our nation’s kids are falling way behind children of the world. This coupled with other factors such as our nations current economic status further magnifies the problem of being misguided for so long. Introducing our children to things like web 2.0 early on can better prepare them for tomorrow’s workforce. Education is the place to start.

I recently read a blog that rates a number of web 2.0 applications for educational purposes. Below are some apps I found interesting. (http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2008/09/11/the-best-web-20-applications-for-education-2008/)

Criteria set upon each tool were the following:
-Accessible to English Language Learners and non-tech savvy users. - Not like second life where I keep hitting myself over the head.
- Free-of-charge.- Appropriate for classroom use. - Not like 2nd life that has a lot, a lot of adult content.
- Completely browser-based with no download required. - Not like second life..which is so very very very taxing on your computer.

Work on your presentation skills on: Number twenty-eight is Selfcast. It lets anyone with a webcam immediately broadcast over the web for free, and anyone (without registering) can watch and also participate via live text chat.

Build artistic skills: Number twenty-seven is The Broth. It lets you create password-protected private “rooms” where people can cooperate on creating a piece of art.

Conducting Polls: Number twenty-four is Fo.reca.st. It’s a free online polling application that lets you easily add sound, images, or video to your polls/surveys; has a variety of ways to see your results; and many different formats to show your survey.

Comic skills: Number twenty-one is an online comic-creation site called Pixton. Allows users to put self-made comic strips in a virtual book. Only appropriate content is allowed on site…so its kid friendly.

Online Scavanger Hunt: Number eighteen is Zunal. An easy and fun way to do scavenger hunts on the web.

Instructional Stuffff - Number fifteen is Graspr a site where users can upload (and watch) “how-to” or “instructional” videos. Online test: Number six is My Studiyo. An innovative way to create online tests and quizzes.