Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms
- ISBN13: 9781412977470
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
For educators of all disciplines, this third edition of a bestseller provides K–12 examples of how Web tools such as blogs, wikis, Facebook, and Twitter allow students to learn more, create more, and communicate better.
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(out of 52 reviews)
List Price: $ 31.95
Price: $ 22.50
Review by Chris Champion for Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms
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Note: while there are some spoilers here, I will deliberately LEAVE THINGS OUT so you will have no choice to read his great book. I could not put it down and I learned so much, even though I’ve been Podcasting since September and Blogging (sort of) for two years.
Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms by Will Richardson is a great resource for any teacher or instructional technologist who wants to integrate technology into the classroom. Will begins by quoting Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web – the vision was that it was a “read-write web” – with web users not only collecting information but creating it as well. In his book, Will gives many examples of how to do this:
Blogs: great for class portals, an online filing cabinet, e-portfolios… but better: a collaborative space for students and teachers to react to questions and scenarios – all online where Will has arranged for his students to meet authors or students from other schools to discuss a topic. Student writing becomes authentic, relevant. Will recommends that teachers blog themselves before introducing blogs to their students (just like a teacher of writing should be a writer himself, or a reading teacher should read on her own). Will dedicates an entire chapter to “getting started” with blogs – with juicy tips and tricks, as well as resources for new bloggers.
Wikis: after a discussion of the origin of the wiki (wiki-wiki – Hawaiian for “quick”) and a discussion of the most well-known wiki, Wikipedia, Will discusses the uses for wikis in school: you can create an online text for your classroom, a lesson plan exchange for teachers, and he gives a good introduction to creating your own wiki using PBWiki.
RSS: OK- this is where my brain began to melt. I was blown away by the difference between what I THOUGHT RSS was good for and all of the ideas that Will has for them. To quote his chapter on RSS: “I think it’s the one technology that you should start using today, right now, this minute. And tomorrow, you should teach your students to use it.” After reading this chapter I did, and I will. Seriously. This chapter was an epiphany for me.
Podcasts: amateur radio, with lots of possibilities. There are many resources given in his book but the Education Podcast Network is the best known and a great place to start. Will gives some great tips on software to use like Audacity – and how to use Skype to record interviews (using software from http://www.powergramo.com ).
I hate to sound like PBS’s Reading Rainbow, but if you want to find out more, you really should buy and read his book. It is very well written, organized, and is an invaluable resource for any teacher willing to try technology in their classroom.
June 23rd, 2010 at 11:44 pm
Review by Janice Powell for Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms
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I’m not someone who necessarily “loves” technology, but with so many of my high school students using blogs and just spending so much of their time on the Internet, I decided to get up to speed. This book was recommended to me by friends who had seen the author speak, and I have to say that I’m simply amazed by how well this book lays the groundwork for these technologies and how clearly it points the way to get started. I’ve decided to start a blog to use as a place to reflect about my teaching, and I’m already looking forward to this fall to try some of the other great ideas in the book. Whatever you do, don’t believe the one negative review in this list. This book is aimed at classroom educators who need to start understanding how important the Web is becoming to all of us. It’s a great book, one that every single teacher should read.
June 24th, 2010 at 12:40 am
Review by Declan Hayes for Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms
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This book is a mixed bag. The entry blurb says it was published in 2006 but page 112 of this very very short book has the author telling us he expects podcasting to be big in 2005. just as blogs were big in 2004, the year he probably wrote this very very small book.
The book is sometimes useful in giving out some urls so we can look at what others are doing or what is available out there. However, a common problem with all these entry level books is they lack focus and a targeted audience. Is the book for teachers from grade school up to university level? This is an important question as it would dictate what approach to take.
For the hefty price of this book, I got to look at a few new sites. But that happens most days when someone puts me on to a new thread for free. Other than that, I got very little out of it beyond a broad brush approach of what the author is doing, which is relevant to him but not to me or you.
I use Wordpress which gets only passing mention in this shallow book. I was considering buying the Wordpress Quickstart book which comes out at the end of June. But that version is already out of date and the Wordpress site has enough supporting documents to fill a small library. So why either the book when Google is better?
And why buy another geewhizz book, which has one shallow chapter on Flickr ( google it if you don’t know what it is, visit the site, save a few photos and you have what is in the Flickr chapter).
Most books like this agree books are going out of fashion. But they keep spewing out over priced books like this. Still the big font was easy on the eyes.
Also, teachers have to generally work to a platform, a curriculum that has been externally set. But the book does not delve into that; instead it goes on about a teacher here and another there doing some seemingly cool things with the kids in their class. Gee whiz.
My verdict: worth skimming through if you find a discarded copy hangiing around.
June 24th, 2010 at 12:53 am
Review by Tracy Fowler for Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms
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I’ve dabbled with blogs and wikis for about a year now, but can honestly say I didn’t see why everyone in Educational Technology was getting so excited. Now I understand! Will Richardson quickly turned me into a Read/Write web evangelist! He gives wonderful recommendations for good tools, excellent examples of use and a steady stream of ideas for how to best utilize these POWERFUL tools in classrooms.
The book is a quick read, written by someone with a blog mentality. A chapter might take 20 minutes to read, but the additional, fabulous collection of well-research links takes another two hours to explore!
June 24th, 2010 at 1:28 am
Review by Brandy Foster for Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms
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I am an elementary school teacher who values technology integration in classrooms. Initially, the book begins slow with an overabundant amount of details about the simplicity of blogging. Some advice is given to lead novices in the right direction tailored to their blogging interests.
An aside: As I was searching on the Internet for safe and secure blog sites for young students, I found this website: http://mhetherington.net/blogs/?p=8 which was created by a middle school teacher with similar interests in student technology involvement. It details steps that can lead any teacher into a free (yet time consuming) setup for students to use. (I used this website to create my own blog site for my 32 fourth grade students and it worked marvelously!)
The author then introduced the power of wikis. I really appreciated the real-life accounts from actual educators who use wikis for group projects with students. I did feel a like the examples came mostly from secondary education and did not focus heavily on primary student possibilities with wikis. PB wiki (peanut butter wiki) for educators was explained and the book offered some great resources for teachers on a low budget with wiki interests.
Next, RSS feeds were explained. Although much of the explanations of RSS feeds were still above my head in understanding, I learned a number of values in using RSS feeds with the Web. One of the examples used in the book was that one could subscribe to all RSS feeds in Cyberspace about a topic of interest. If a person is interested in “Global Warming in California,” they can subscribe to any place on the Internet that may use those words as an update when stories or writing is produced and submitted on websites you may not know existed. RSS feeding is a promising method of allowing the computer to do the searching for you.
During my reading of this book, I posted two blogs (on blogger.com) about my reflections. Within 3 days of my writing, the author of this book, Will Richardson, posted a comment on my blog thanking me for reading his book. My inferences told me he may have an RSS feed in Cyberspace that brings him news about whenever information is posted about himself or his book. I was impressed by his comment as this showed me he practiced what he preached in his book and really values the technology he promotes.
By the end of the book, podcasting, screencasting, and videos were introduced as well. In all, the book catered more toward novices and technology learners, not experts. Experts may find this book a bit juvenile, while I enjoyed it for its practicality and rapid information. My favorite part of the book stands at the providing of websites and tools that can be searched just seconds after reading about them. I found that using this book as a user’s manual was helpful for technology novices on the go.
June 24th, 2010 at 2:17 am