Chapter 3: New Tools

Wow! This chapter has a lot of information and it makes me want to look into a lot of the tools that are available. Overall, I continue to get this feel for Web 2.0 as being interactive and the internet no longer is simply something that we get information from, but a place where students and teachers can engage in learning and make it more of a lifestyle. However, with this notion comes a caution, in my opinion. If students and teachers are engaging in this online educational community, isn't there a danger in loosing human interaction. On one hand I see the valuable resources, but on the other hand, some aspect of the tangible human connection is lost and is replaced with technological connection. Nonetheless this is how students today are viewing connection and meaning so we must meet them there. Although, I still think we should strive to find a balance between social skills online and social interaction face-to-face.
A couple of the tools that were mentioned in this chapter really got me excited for the opportunities that await in the classroom. One of the main ones are wikis. We talked about these yesterday, but today through class discussion and readings, I am beginning to see how helpful they can be in the classroom. One of the main connections and uses I can use is with 4th grade writing portfolios. When I was in 4th grade I had a portfolio that was several folders bound together. In here we kept the brainstorming, drafts and the final copies. If wikis were used for this process, it could be an online community where other students are giving feedback and the student is taking more pride in their work. This can also be shown on an electronic portfolio platform, as mentioned in the chapter.
Secondly, I found that the discussion of blogs was especially helpful in giving pointers on how to use it in the classroom. I found that it was interesting that the author commented on the authority and validity of most blogs. It used to be that you couldn't really trust things that you found online, but more and more there are really some valuable resources and information that can be found online. Even so, obviously, there still needs to be discretion. I wonder if educational blogs will become more like the "scholarly journal" community in the future. I also liked the mention of Class Blogmeister. In a world that is more open and the possibility for potential mis-use of the internet are more prevalent, safety should be a top concern for your students. I like that this community is safe and protected, but the students are still exposed to the technology in order to enhance learning.
Finally, a few miscellaneous notes about the chapter. One of the things that I was wondering about is if there was an open-source version of a pdf creator. Based on the discussion of other desktop applications being available, I would assume that there would be, however, I have not run across this service. Secondly, I thought that the social bookmarking discussed makes a lot of sense. Just as with a lot of Web 2.0 it encourages working together and sharing resources. This is a skill that will be helpful for the students even after they graduate your class. Finally, I thought that the concept of Mashups was ingenious. With the possibility of working with churches in the future, these kinds of tools will prove to be invaluable. Furthermore, the use of these applications could prove helpful in administration, which I hope to be involved with, at some level, some day.