Web 2.0 Resources

Learn, explore, share, and contribute! 

PB Works (Wiki) -- One of the great wiki platforms out there, and great for educators as it allows users to determine the degree of access each additional user has to specific pages or collections of pages.  As a wiki of course, all can contribute (assuming they have permission and an account) and all activity (i.e. collaboration) is documented and accessible to the teacher!

Demo of tool: You're experiencing PB Works right now! Want to see more? Here's a great overview of PB Works.

Pros:

• Advanced activity monitoring
• Flexible platform in terms of adding various content types including equations, Skype, Voki avatars, footnotes etc. 

• Customizable share settings/permissions
• Good back-end tools for organizing content (pages, files, uploaded content & folders) 

Cons:

• Controlling font not easy in PB Works. Often have to highlight very limited amounts of text for changes to take effect. 
• Sometimes clunky user interface (separate edit/view screens)
• Navigating between various workspaces can involve multiple clicks
• Limited support for common keyboard shortcuts (Control/Command+K for hyperlinks for example) 
• Adding links and content can be cumbersome as limited What-You-See-Is What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) interface
• Reformatting text can be laborious process...seems to hold on to previous formatting repeatedly, even after making/saving changes 
• 2 GB storage with free version, so users must rely heavily on cloud storage and video streaming solutions  

 

Cost: Basic plan is free but limits users by storage space and number of collaborators, among other things. All detailed here.

 

Ease of Learning:  For average user, a little challenging!

 

Student Accounts: Yes, up to 100 users with Classroom plan detailed here.

 
Versatility: Powerful website builder with great collaboration tools. Capable of handling most web-based collaboration tasks with ease, regardless of subject. 

Links to Tutorials: There are a lot of great video tutorials out there for PB Works, including this one by Mark Barnes and PB Works own YouTube Channel...these videos are in addition to PB Works' great Help Desk and Learning Center, located here.

How it could be used in Math, Science, Social Studies, Language Arts, others?

• Math: Have students create a class website with various groups all responsible for separate pages that include student-created video tutorials on how to work through various types of math problems...then use website to review for exams, as on-demand resource warehouse that is passed from year to year etc.

• Science: Have students video record experiments conducted in class, upload them to YouTube (or teacher does this), then embed on PB Works as website resource for absent students, remediation, or if you add links/explanations/challenges for further reading, the site could even be used as a launching point for extension activities. 

• Social Studies: Create separate pages arranged thematically, chronologically, or geographically, and work with students to add content illustrating key points/concepts addressed in class. Share the wiki with students and parents by adjusting visibility and have students teach their parents what they learned each day/week/unit etc.

• ELA: Have students create (help manage) a wiki for any text studied in class and add pages they build as resources for characters, character types, plot, literary devices, close reading examples etc. This then becomes a tool for review, and even a site that can be shared year to year in a flipped approach to literary instruction (spoiler warnings must be addressed).  

(PB Image Source)

 

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Diigo -- With a variety of apps and extensions out there, Diigo is a great tool for capturing and sharing content from almost any device. With the Diigo bookmarklet, users can snip/highlight/add notes (and more) to any web page they come across on an iPad, Mac, or Windows PC.  All captured content, be it an image, complete web page, or a note, can be tagged and shared. This makes content curation easy! My one complaint about Diigo: it's just not that visual. Many teachers tend to access resources presented to them in a visual, thumbnail-like way (probably because they base these expectations on Pinterest!) 

Demo of tool: https://www.diigo.com/user/folkse 

Pros:

• Capture content from almost any device...details here.
• Highlights, comments, bookmarks, posts, all mobile (even iPad!) friendly

• Can organize content by most recent or popular
• Filter-enabled: Can filter by bookmarks, images, topics
• Notification settings enable users to be emailed when updates/posts are made to various (even specific topics/posts) Diigo groups they belong to...
• Import from/Export to Delicious 
• Groups can utilize tags for posts and generate embeddable and functional tag cloud to share content with others in an easy way

Cons:

• Heavy text focus for content...layout not visual like Pinterest

• When Diigo posts or participation are required within a specific timeframe, posts organized by "most recent" or "popular" can create confusion  

Cost: Free accounts, especially free education accounts, enable all features 99% of users would likely need, short of some advanced annotation features and more screen capture/page caching options...all detailed here. 
 

Ease of Learning:  For average user, a little challenging due to distinguishing between posts, bookmarks, sticky notes, topics etc. 
 

Student Accounts: Yes. Using the Teacher Console, teachers can create student accounts and groups without requiring student emails via a link. 
 

Versatility:  Extremely versatile. Great tool for remembering, organizing, and collaborating with others about digital content across subject and interest areas from almost any device.   
 

Links to Tutorials: There are a lot of great video tutorials out there for PB Works, including this one by Mark Barnes and PB Works own YouTube Channel...these videos are in addition to PB Works' great Help Desk and Learning Center, located here.

 

How it could be used in Math, Science, Social Studies, Language Arts, others?

• Math: Have students create a class website with various groups all responsible for separate pages that include student-created video tutorials on how to work through various types of math problems...then use website to review for exams, as on-demand resource warehouse that is passed from year to year etc.

• Science: Have students video record experiments conducted in class, upload them to YouTube (or teacher does this), then embed on PB Works as website resource for absent students, remediation, or if you add links/explanations/challenges for further reading, the site could even be used as a launching point for extension activities. 

• Social Studies: Create separate pages arranged thematically, chronologically, or geographically, and work with students to add content illustrating key points/concepts addressed in class. Share the wiki with students and parents by adjusting visibility and have students teach their parents what they learned each day/week/unit etc.

• ELA: Have students create (help manage) a wiki for any text studied in class and add pages they build as resources for characters, character types, plot, literary devices, close reading examples etc. This then becomes a tool for review, and even a site that can be shared year to year in a flipped approach to literary instruction (spoiler warnings must be addressed).  

(Diigo Image Source)

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Screenr -- Web-based tool for screen capture and recording. With Screenr, users can record up to 5 minutes of basically anything they see on their screen (typically short of recording video playback itself), be it the entire screen or just a portion. Recordings can then be shared in a variety of ways

Demo of tool: This is a link to the Screenr user stream, and here's a link to a Screenr recording I did on using Unitag for creative QR code generation.

 

Pros:

• If you get along with Java, Screenr is a great, easy tool for creating screencasts for any purpose: blending or flipping instruction, providing loop-able directions for students so you can move around class to help, addressing the challenges of absent students etc. 

• Free, web-based tool for screencasting

• Can download recordings as MP4 or share via YouTube, link, or embed on a website 

 

Cons:

• 5 minute recording limit

• Many users have difficulty getting Java, Screenr, and their computer to "play nice," especially on Mac OS 

 

Cost: FREE

 

Ease of Learning:  If Java is detected, very easy. If Java is not detected, you'll spend lots of time trying to get it to work!

 

Student Accounts: No

 

Versatility:  Screenr is a great, easy tool for creating screencasts for any purpose: blending or flipping instruction, providing loop-able directions for students so you can move around class to help, addressing the challenges of absent students etc. As it can be used in combination with interactive whiteboards as well, many teachers find using Screenr to record short clips of their lessons (even working out math problems) to be a very valuable tool.
 

Links to Tutorials:  Here's Screenr's 1-minute overview, and a great tutorial here.

How it could be used in Math, Science, Social Studies, Language Arts, others?

• Math: Record your interactive whiteboard while working out math problem, then share to YouTube or embed within your teacher site.
• Science: Use a document camera and Screenr to record a live experiment and post to YouTube or embed within your teacher site as a hook, review, or extension activity. 
• Social Studies: Record a narrated version of a image slideshow as you explain to students a particular concept as it's illustrated over time.
• ELA: Use Screenr and your document camera and flip it 90 degrees to use it as a video camera...record students interviewing each other as various characters from a literary selection you're studying in class.

(Screenr Image Source)

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Capzules (Timeline) -- Ever wanted to be able to create an interactive timeline, where users could not only access links and resources specific to a particular place/time, but also view videos, handouts and more? Welcome to Capzules!

Demo of tool: This is a short Capzule I made on iOS 7. You'll notice the music begins right away but navigating through the resources, i.e. timeline, is up to the user. Here are some other sample Capzules the site has showcased as well.

 

Pros:

• Organize content chronologically and in very visual way

• With Capzules no need to jump from page to page...all content on the same page via the timeline 

• Add background music that auto plays

• Upload many types of content, including images, videos, Word / Excel / Power Point documents, PDFs, and .mp3s.   

• Customize theme, colors, and appearance

• Easily share Capzule, even with non-Capzule users.

 

Cons:

• Very buggy in Safari browser...continuously had trouble getting Capzules to recognize my login and forgot PW option always resulted in error message.

• Had multiple Word and PDF uploads fail, probably due to size (~ 10 MB).

• Heavily dependent on Flash and Java...no compatibility with iOS yet (not even an app). 

Cost: Free
 

Ease of Learning:  Fairly straight forward. Must use a flash-enabled device, like a laptop or desktop...assuming that, creating your own Capzule is pretty easy with the editing options on the left and the preview at center. Directions throughout are straight forward. Just don't use Safari browser and don't forget your password!
 

Student Accounts: No. All students must create their own, though you can invite them to Capzules via email and even import from your address book. 
 

Versatility:  With ability to add links within your Capzule to any web-based content, even with the playback limitations that will no doubt occur, Capzules presents non-iOS users with a great tool for accessing and viewing a variety of web-based content, even content that can't be directly uploaded and previewed with the Capzule itself.
 

Links to Tutorials:  Short Capzule's Tutorial by A. Calhoun; Create a Timeline Using Capzules by Andrew Hinote

 

How it could be used in Math, Science, Social Studies, Language Arts, others?

• Math: Consider a series of videos all illustrating a multi-step math problem being worked out...students could watch a step, try it on their own, then watch another step and try that step on their own. Alternatively, teachers could create a Capzule that consists of multiple approaches to the same problem type...if the first video (or resource of any type) didn't "click" with the student, then the next item in the Capzule could be an alternative explanation/strategy. 
• Science: Use a Capzule to illustrate evolutionary concepts!
• Social Studies: This tool was made for Social Studies! Illustrate any change or concept over time and adjust dates to actually match historical events!
• ELA: Consider Capzule as an alternative to Power Point in that students could address a variety of various literary components (plot, character development, irony, figures of speech etc); include a chronological plot playback; or even upload video versions of skits, "as-character" interviews etc

 

(Capzule Image Source) 

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Demo of tool: Most consider Prezi the original alternative to Power Point. With powerful presentation features, including 360 spins and zooming and panning capabilities, it certainly has the potential to engage attendees and students alike. This Prezi claims to be the best Prezi ever, and with over 1 million views it may well be!

Pros:

• Visually engaging presentation 
• Cloud-based editing and presenting...as such, including streaming videos in Prezi quite easy 

• Can present from mobile devices too
• User Interface substantially improved and simplified in recent years...easy to add content, frames, etc
• Free accounts available 

Cons:

• Offline editing requires paid account
• Private Prezis requires edu account (or upgraded standard account)
• Many users find it difficult to get the hang of 

 

Cost: There is a free educational account type that does have private Prezis option enabled, but offline editing access requires a pro account, and even with the edu discount, the Pro account costs ~$56/year. Details here. 
 

Ease of Learning:  For average user, a little challenging!

 

Student Accounts: Doesn't appear to include teacher-managed student account option, although this may be possible with the volume-based Edu team pricing detailed here. 

 

Versatility:  As versatile as Power Point itself, but with more cloud and streaming capabilities built in.
 

Links to Tutorials: Prezi has a great YouTube Channel with many tutorials.

How it could be used in Math, Science, Social Studies, Language Arts, others?

• Math: Take students on a world tour! A collection of images that illustrate various geometric concepts in real life.
• Science: Introduce any concept in an engaging way with a combination of images, text, and even videos that illustrate the concepts and forces, and maybe even exothermic reactions (i.e. explosions!) involved. Prezi makes embedding videos much easier that Power Point.
• Social Studies: Take students on a world geography tour to any historical location of note, and include images and videos that help them feel like they're there! Could even have them collaborate on their own Prezi together, perhaps as an online journal chronicling their latest learning experience or virtual field trip?
• ELA: Create engaging book reports for future students using Prezi, then house the links to all these reviews on your teacher website for future students to use and access.

(Prezi Image Source)

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Demo of tool: Many transitioning to digital content delivery are at the substitution phase of the SAMR model, and find Lino to be an easy tool to use as a digital bulletin board. I used this Lino for an Edmodo training I developed in another UTB course...it contains multiple contributions from various teachers who were a part of the training, and since they've also included images as part of their stickies, I thought this would be a good choice for highlighting some of what is possible with Lino. Here's a link to another Lino I created just to demonstrate Lino's capabilities...

Pros:

• Easy to use
• Compatible with mobile devices via a Lino app and to a degree non-flash mobile browsers
• Supports text, image, file upload, and video type sticky notes
• Share settings allow for giving view only rights or edit rights...
• Can embed fully functioning Linos via frames
• Huge canvas to work with!
• Users can't delete each other's sticky notes (only owner can delete all)
• Limited ads, even for free version

Cons:

• Doesn't allow for threaded discussions based on, and attached to, a single sticky (like Mural.ly does)
• Requires email verification, which means potential account creation issues if students' email accounts are within a "walled garden" and don't receive emails from outside the district's subdomain
• Can't adjust notification settings for each Lino (only overall...email once a day or every time someone posts a sticky)
• Users must be over 13 based on Lino's TOS.

Cost: Free account enables everything above...Premium account costs about $3/month and allows for larger sized uploads and improved activity management and monitoring
 

Ease of Learning:  For average user, not difficult at all!
 

Student Accounts: No, private accounts only. Students create and manage their own.
 

Versatility: Cross-disciplinary tool for creating, sharing, and managing a digital sticky board, or pin board. Think of it as versatile as a classroom bulletin board!
 

Links to Tutorials: Visit How To Lino for basic tutorials and visit Lino Help for more advanced tutorials!

How it could be used in Math, Science, Social Studies, Language Arts, others?

• Math: Post videos created by students or teachers illustrating how to do various types of problems
• Science: Post videos created by students chronicling their experiments and procedures and conclusions
• Social Studies: Create a digital timeline, with a sticky of any kind at any point in the timeline
• ELA: Use a Lino to distribute work to students; use a Lino to showcase student created videos (skits, animations, movies etc) or links to projects (PDFs, .docx, .ppt, or links to anything with a URL!)

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Demo of tool: Students often use downloaded, copyrighted sound clips as backgrounds for their videos and presentations. Soundation enables them to create their own, and do with them what they please...all copyright free. My 10 year-old son easily created this track after I introduced him to Soundation. Then, with his permission, I was able to download the track as a .wav file and use it as background music for a video I created with Screenflow. This video was used to showcase a Brine Shrimp Ecological Adaptation Experiment conducted by one of our Biology teachers and her students. You can see the final video here. 

Pros:

• Easy to use, drag and drop interface for studio
• Allows users to work with multiple layers to create increasingly complex musical selections
• Easy and free to download your finished product as a .wav file (which can then be pulled into other projects including iMovie, Screenflow, Camtasia etc.)
• Large free library of sounds to choose from, mainly electronica
• Capable of importing audio files, midi files and more
• Complete with virtual keyboards and lots of extra tools which are accessible but don’t interfere with otherwise simple user interface
• Can select multiple sound clips at a time to move/copy etc.
• Will detect mismatched tempos when dropping in clips that don’t fit with existing clips
• Save your creations and project files “in the cloud”
• No download required

Cons:

• Premium sounds do come at a cost
• Exporting limited to .wav files (no .mp3 export option)
• Doesn’t support keyboard shortcuts...must right click to get cut/copy/paste
• Non-mobile use only...no app...no mobile version of web-based

Cost: Free account enables most of the basic functions but not recording or premium sounds...There are a variety of account types available for purchase detailed here, with costs ranging from $20/year to $100/year.  
 

Ease of Learning:  As long as users don’t try to get too fancy from the start, fairly straight forward and easy to use!  Advanced features do take some time to master but Soundation’s tutorials are thorough and quite helpful.
 

Student Accounts: No, private accounts only. Students create and manage their own.
 

Versatility: Cross-disciplinary tool for creating and sharing custom sound files which can then be integrated into many other video creation tools including iMovie, Screenflow, Camtasia and others.

Links to Tutorials: Soundation’s Tutorial and HOW TO Resources

How it could be used in Math, Science, Social Studies, Language Arts, others?

• Math: Create and analyze how music connects to math: mathematical patterns like Beats Per Minute, Tempo, Pitch, and more can be explored with custom-created content
• Science: Explore ways science and music are connected in terms of psychology, physiology, and more. Then have students create experiments (science fair?) to test their theories using music they’ve created themselves. Altering sound variables is easy with Soundation.
• Social Studies: Analyze how cultural values are defined in terms of time and place and reflected in the musical creations of the time, then have students create their own replicas and defend their appropriateness.
• ELA: Analyze the presence of tone, mood, and atmosphere in various musical selections as a class and in small groups, then have students create their own music based on randomly assigned tone/mood adjectives. Students then write an expository piece that defends/supports their creation. Could even have students identify and analyze techniques used in written selections that share the same tone/mood.

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Demo of tool:

One of the features teachers find so valuable with Google Docs is the ability to track and monitor activity in online collaborative environments.  While Lino is great for posting various types of content in an online digital pin board of sorts, it doesn’t have the ability for users to collaborate on specific pins/posts, or the ability for the teacher to track the activity and contributions of various users working on the same online bulletin board.  Mural.ly combines the best of Google Docs and Lino and provides users with a highly visual interface and the collaborative tools and monitoring features teachers who have used Google Docs have come to expect. For these reasons, I’ve shared Mural.ly with many teachers, most recently at our annual August PD, where I created a Demo Mural you can view here.  Additionally, Mural.ly gives users the ability to share a “presentation link” so viewers can be guided through a Mural in a sequential, planned approach. To see this in action, view this Mural and click through the various areas via the slide arrows at the bottom of the screen. Want to get excited about Mural.ly? For a one-minute video overview of Mural.ly’s features in action click here.

 

Pros:

• Easy to use, drag and drop interface for links, images, and streaming videos
• Allows users to work with multiple layers to create increasingly complex collages
• Can organize presentation using areas so users can click through the Mural in the order you want them to...
• No download required
• Users can add (archived and user specific) comments to specific pins/posts
• All contributions and activity is archived...can even click on action log to be taken to activity on Mural
• No verification email involved so you don’t have to worry about “walled gardens” with student email and account setup
• Integrated Google Image search tool (now by default a “safe search”)
• Duplicate entire Murals or Elements
• Tight integration with Google Docs and Evernote
• Chat feature (archived and user specific)
• Supports manykeyboard shortcuts (in Chrome not Safari)
• Email notifications specific to Mural
• Can easily share invite links on websites, social media or via email
• Easily upload content to your Mural with the iOS App Mural.ly Catcher
• Single-click on/off for Mural notifications (located next to the title of the Mural)

 

Cons:

• We’ve got Mural.ly open for teachers but not for students...this is because at the beginning of the year their Google Image search was not set to “safe search” ... by the time they made the change (within a week of us bringing it to their attention) the damage was done...
• No mobile version
• Limited functionality on Safari (no drag and drop links)
• Cost! Cost! Cost!
• Zooming and panning takes some getting used to...easiest option is to use the zoom and pan tools
• Premium features, including ability to download high res image costs

 

Cost: Free account now enables creation of only 2 Murals and 50 collaborators. They have other pricing options that start at $29/month (max 50 collaborators) but no edu discount that I can find yet. Update 4-22: After a diplomatically-worded email request, Mural.ly promptly responded with some edu pricing (which isn’t advertised anywhere I can see): $20/yr for students (unlimited Murals and 10 collaborators) and $100/yr for teacher accounts (unlimited Murals, 100 collaboraters).

 

Ease of Learning:  Average. There’s a bit getting used to zooming and panning across the Mural for optimal viewing. Again, easiest option is to use the zoom and pan tools.

 

Student Accounts: For most intents and purposes, no, private accounts only. Students create and manage their own. Though they may have this feature as part of the Enterprise level plan, but I’m too scared to even ask how much this costs!

 

Versatility: It’s a digital pinboard with the collaborative potential of Google Docs. What can’t it do!

 

Links to Tutorials:

Mural.ly has a wealth of resources available here.

 

How it could be used in Math, Science, Social Studies, Language Arts, others?

• Math: Create video tutorial reviews for other students and share them on a Mural for test prep, semester or unit reviews.
• Science: Explore ecosystems, life cycles of various organisms and more and share what you’ve learned on a Mural.
• Social Studies: Collect and share links, docs, images, and resources to define and describe any event, geographic area, or culture.
• ELA: Book or short story reviews; author or book studies; collaborative analysis of literary techniques and devices used in various text selections/works

 

 

Want more!? See Dr. Butler's Web 2.0 showcase here!

 

 

Eric Folks

Instructional Technology Coordinator

Lampasas ISD

@Tech4Folks

Tech4Folks.com