Using+Web+2.0

**Web tools for classrooms – 21 ideas to take away with you**

**Facebook**

1) Students can respond to open-ended discussion questions posed by you, e.g. for homework.

2) Participate in polls / multiple-choice questions.

3) Create Facebook profiles for characters in a novel / historical figures of interest.

4) Students could post a summary of what was covered in the lesson for the benefit of others.

5) Share key materials / videos / dates etc with the class.

**Twitter**

6) Post tweets about items of interest, e.g. documentaries on TV, examples of your subject in the news etc.

7) Share key materials / videos / dates etc with the class, in the same way as in Facebook.

8) Encourage students to follow tweets of interest to your subject / famous figures / politicians etc.

**Blogs**

9) Encourage students to follow an existing blog relevant to your subject.

10) Create your own blog to convey information / give students a chance to discuss this, much in the same way as a Facebook page (but less high-maintenance and less privacy concerns).

11) Get students to create a blog on a topic for homework (e.g. at the end of a topic for revision, or as part of a research project).

12) Students could also comment on each others’ blogs, either to give feedback or to ask/answer set questions.

<span style="font-family: trebuchet,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">**Other less technical ideas**

<span style="font-family: trebuchet,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">13) Instead of having students make a Facebook profile, print one out for them to fill in (I have a Word Document template you can use).

<span style="font-family: trebuchet,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">14) Students must make a ‘Facebook status update’ on the lesson before they leave the room.

<span style="font-family: trebuchet,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">15) Have students summarize a topic / theme / soliloquy etc into 140 characters like they would on Twitter.

<span style="font-family: trebuchet,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">16) You could even save these ‘tweets’ to form the basis of a starter/plenary later on when students have to guess what topics they refer to.

<span style="font-family: trebuchet,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">**Podcasts / Videos**

<span style="font-family: trebuchet,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">17) Instead of (or in addition to) a Power Point research project, give students the option of making a podcast or a video. These could be uploaded onto the Internet (e.g. YouTube, or put in Fusion).

<span style="font-family: trebuchet,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">18) Split students up into groups to make a revision podcast on the major topic areas that the students can download and listen to on their iPods.

<span style="font-family: trebuchet,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">19) Create a short video as an introduction to a topic, and get students to brainstorm what they think might be covered based on what you’ve included in your video.

<span style="font-family: trebuchet,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">20) Ask students to create a video that’s a purely visual representation of a topic. Students could then turn this back into words, or write an essay question based on this.

<span style="font-family: trebuchet,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">**Starters/Plenaries**

<span style="font-family: trebuchet,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">See Facebook status update and 140-character tweets as above.

<span style="font-family: trebuchet,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;">21) Also, try getting students to text in answers to questions / send them on the computer ( [|www.polleverywhere.com] )