I am taking a class through my district to learn about web 2.0 tools and how they can be used in the classroom. At the first meeting we joined Skype, Wikispaces, DIIGO, and Delicious. In looking through the Wikispace for this class it looks like we will be signing up for VoiceThreads too. VoiceThreads looks like a program that I could definitely use in my classroom. For $60 a year the students would have their own accounts and we could participate in a K-12 only collaborative network.  In viewing a presentation about VoiceThreads it related that there is a great feature called comment moderation. Comment moderation can be used for safety and to keep the teacher in the loop so only appropriate items are added.

I can see that VoiceThreads would be a great way to get an opinion from all of my students. Since VoiceThread is verbal recordings, my students would have an easier time expressing themselves. (They could still write before recording, but they wouldn’t need to worry about spelling and punctuation.)The comment moderation feature would allow me to have all my students respond to a prompt or answer questions and not be able to see their classmates’ responses until everyone had responded. At that time, I could accept the comments and then their comments would be visible. I believe that students could then share this with their friends and family. There is also a doodle feature that would just be fun.  If you would like more information, this is the classroom example site I was sent to: http://voicethread.com/#home.b409.i3131

There is another second grade teacher taking this class. We are determining how to have our students discuss communities (a second grade standard) on Skype. This would also require extra writing by the kids because the time for them to Skype would be limited and they would want to make the best use of it. When I polled some second graders about how they used the computer at home, I was told that they talk with their friends on the internet.

I am developing a classroom website on wikispaces. I can set up a section where students could add content. This would be a place that they could be on the web and share their creations with peers and family. I need to learn more about a password and login system for people to interact with the site. I would like to open up the website to allow student to add their own projects, as well as classroom projects. When the students complete the PowerPoint presentations we can post them to the site. We could add graphics, their printed stories, and audio files. The kids like to learn poems that they recite in groups or individually in front of the class. These could easily be added to the classroom website. I think these kids would be thrilled to go on the web at home or at the library and be able to see their creations. I think this would generate a lot more reading, writing and creating by my students.