Creating Learning Communities in Online Classes: September 2007

Web 2.0 Community Learning Builders RSS Aggregators

Yahoo! lists a plethora of RSS Aggregators, but increasingly they are built into browsers and other regular software.Examples:Internet Explorer 7FirefoxOperaSafariSample applications:In classes with current events applications, students may gather relevant news reports and post comments, etc. Faculty members may track new and emerging developments in their discipline. Google Reader
Link: http://dir.yahoo.com/computers_and_internet/data_formats/xml__extensible_markup_language_/rss/rss_readers_and_aggregators/

Wikis

Wiki - PBwiki
One of the most versatile Web 2.0 applications is the Wiki.
Type of web site
Multiple people can easily add, remove, or edit the content
Uses versioning to track changes
Some require registration or a password for editing
Editing can be done through simplified HTML markup language or a WYSIWYG editor
Nice list of educational uses of wikis is hosted by Wikispaces
Largest and best-known wiki is Wikipedia
An edited and reviewed version of Wikipedia is emerging at CitizendiumWiki uses:
Collaborate with colleagues on professional projects
Group projects, essays and reports
Space for free writing or journaling
Share resources – web sites, annotated bibliographies, models for assignments
Create a compendium of terms and concepts for the course to use as a study guide
PBwiki is representative of many wiki sites - offering free hosting for educational uses. It includes several templates: classroom, syllabus, and group project. PBwiki also offers ideas for instructional uses of wikis, as well as "how-to" videos for your students. In addition to basic wiki features, you can add widgets for spreadsheets and calendars, videos, and voice chat.
Try it out at our Building Online Communities in Online Classes Blog:http://creatinglearningcommunitiesonlineclasses.pbwiki.com/

Blogs - Blogger

Web Logs or "blogs" are web pages that are generated with software that commonly puts postings in reverse chronological order. One common software program to create blogs is http://blogger.com - owned by Google. (a new blog is created every half second)

Sample applications:

Journal blog - to collect and present student journal entries
Filter blog - to post a collection of items such as news stories, or as in this case, technologies

Online Learning Update
Google Search for Online Learning
Blog Search at Google
Sample Aggregation into Web Pages

There

Podcasting

Podomatic provides free online creation and hosting of up to 250 MB.

The Freesound Project
Part of Creative Commons allows use of sounds for podcasting for education.

Tool Factory Podcasting provides a great $99 "enhanced" podcasting tool for windows.

Profcast is a $60 tool for Mac OS-X.

How To Create a Podcast for Your Online Course

iTunes