Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Science 2.0?


From Web 2.0 to Math 2.0 to Science 2.0 -- Dave Powers, at his Do the Math blog, speculates on what Science 2.0 might look like in the classroom. He focuses on Web 2.0 tools that can help create the Science 2.0 classroom.

In his post "What Science 2.0 Could Look Like," Powers lists several free Web 2.0 tools that can be useful in a science classroom and one tool that he says is "worth the money." Powers' list includes:
  • Google Spreadsheets, "a free way to create a collaborative data sheet to record the results found during an experiment" (you can tour Google Documents to see all the features)
  • Slideshare which allows you to put Keynote and PowerPoint presentations online
  • Google homepage for organizing RSS feeds and online discussions
  • Wikispaces for Educators to make private or public wikis and "to create an online textbook, an online lab book, or a website for students to share links and to conduct discussions"
  • Vimeo, a video-hosting service for "publishing student videos, teacher tutorials, and other video files" and where viewers can comment on videos
  • Jing Project to capture screenshots and record video
  • Bubbl.us, a concept mapping application similar to Inspiration for "map[ping] out the connections between science concepts such as the food chain or the water cycle"
  • Diigo, a social bookmarking tool that lets you add sticky notes or highlighting to shared articles and websites
  • Create a Graph for graph-making
And Powers feels that ed.VoiceThread is worth the price, about $60 for an account that can accommodate up to 100 students. ed.VoiceThread allows for multimodal presentation of results, experiments, research, or new findings. Students can also discuss at ed.VoiceThread. ed.VoiceThread is the K-12 version of the free VoiceThreads.

With so many resources available on the Web for learning, sharing and using findings and information, hopefully more science teachers will turn to the Web and Web 2.0 tools to stimulate and motivate their middle schoolers.

SOURCE: "What Science 2.0 Could Look Like" 04/07/08
photo courtesy of Stephen Barnett, used under this Creative Commons license

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