What is web 2.0?

Web 2.0 refers to the technologies that have developed through the Internet over the past 10 years. The Internet was originally a domain for publishing information via web pages and enabling communication via email.

When people refer to web 2.0 they are refering to the functions of the Internet that allow us to communicate, share and colaborate in a host of ways. This might include such things as:

• Instant messaging eg msn or twitter
• Blogging
• Online collaborative documents eg wikis
• Learning tools eg moodles
• Social networking sites eg Facebook or MySpace

This is just a few examples of how people are interacting on the Internet, there are many more and these are continuing to develop at a rapid pace.

Students are comfortable with a growing number of these tools and the language and ettiquette that comes with them and so they can be used as very powerful learning tools in our classrooms.

The idea of the classroom can extend beyond the 4 walls that make up the physical space, making the learning time away from you and the classroom more powerful than ever before.

The following slideshow is an incredible resource to introduce you to a lage number of tools that you could be using with your students:

http://www.slideshare.net/zaid/101-free-learning-tools-presentation/#