Guest Post on Free Technology for Teachers

Last week I had the honor of creating a guest post on Richard Byrne’s blog Free Technology for Teachers. In thinking about a topic, I decided to go with Web 2.0 collaborations. I wrote about some of the projects incorporating Web 2.0 that I’ve worked on with teachers and their classes. Some were projects from this year(food webs with Cacoo) and others were from several years ago(webpages with Weebly). It was a wonderful experience to share with other professionals in the educational field as a guest blogger(I have communicated with several who had questions). An added bonus was finding out my post was one of the most popular posts for the week with 100 reactions! I would definitely enjoy doing this again. Huge thanks to Richard for the opportunity.

Web 2.0 Collaborative Projects in the Middle School

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Creating Presentations With Prezi

I’m working with one of the QUEST groups this week to show them how to use a free online tool for creating awesome presentations. Prezi is a cloud-based presentation software with a zoomable canvas which allows users to create their own path by using frames.

Resources:

Prezi Manual – pdf

Prezi’s Learn Page

10 Ways to Say it With Prezi-example

The Big Reveal-example

10 Worst Presentation Habits-example

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Using Cacoo to Create Collaborative Food Webs

http://www.bigreboot.com/images/cacoo_logo.gif

Cacoo is a free online diagramming tool which allows real-time collaboration. Teachers can sign up for a free Academic Plan which allows them to add student users. *Please note the Academic Plan is free through June 30, 2012 after which it will be half the price of the Team Plan.
The Project:
After studying Georgia’s barrier islands for the term, students used Cacoo to create a food web of native plants and animals. The class was divided into groups of four students. All four students in each group had individual Cacoo accounts and were required to work collaboratively via Cacoo to design one food web. As an added challenge, group members were required to “chat” online within their Cacoo accounts instead of communicating verbally.
My Observations:
Teaching the kids how to use the program took half a class period as students caught on very quickly. I found no technology problems with Cacoo at all and will use the tool with future projects. I do wish they would reconsider the upcoming price increase for the Academic Plan.

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