1. Project Based Learning is a teaching approach that engages students in sustained, collaborative real-world investigations.
1.1. Benefits of Project Based Learning include providing students with opportunities for critical thinking, global collaboration, and technology use in real world situations. Project Based Learning can involve asking and refining questions, debating ideas, making predictions, data collection and analysis, experiments and creating artifacts.
1.1.1. video conferencing can be used across the curriculum. Videoconferencing can be used to build cultural understanding, learn from outside experts, and reach home-bound students.
1.1.2. Mindmeister As the name suggests, this tool is great for mapping out ideas. A good way to start a project is asking driving questions like what is the essence of a project? It’s great for collaborative brainstorming in project planning and analyzing concepts.
1.1.3. Myhistro This program offers a chronological timeline making it great for collaborative tasks, multimedia projects and presentations in History, Geography and Social Science.
1.1.4. Animoto A fun tool for creating slideshows of field trips and learning concepts. You can illustrate your project with videos, photos and text.
2. Web 2.0 Tools Web 2.0 is a two way communication, where the user can not only read and access information but also add to and make their own contributions to the existing material. This is also commonly referred to as the ‘read-write web’ where the participant adds to the global conversation
2.1. Benefits of Web 2.0 toolsWeb 2.0 Tools are online software programs that allow users to do a number of different things. They can be used to teach curriculum content, store data, create/edit video, edit photos, collaborate and so much more. These programs are often free and are used by teachers, students, and sometimes parents, both in and out of the classroom, on a pretty regular basis.
2.1.1. Science
2.1.1.1. Animal Maze is a fun game where students learn about homes that animals live in. This site, Cookie, also offers games, videos and stories for other subjects.
2.1.1.2. Sheppard Software is a website that has activities for various activities for science, such as drawing pictures of animals in the seasons, matching games, search and find.
2.1.2. Presenting
2.1.2.1. Glogster allows students and teachers to work individually or as a group to create presentations, share information and interact with their peers.
2.1.2.2. VoiceThread integrates technology into story telling by combining voice, text, video and images to create a story.
2.1.2.3. Prezi is a visual storytelling alternative to slide based presentations that allows collaboration.
2.1.2.4. Photo Story 3 is a Windows download that enables students to easily create a Photo Story to retell or interpret their stories.
2.1.2.5. Padlet is an easy way for students to create and collaborate on projects globally.
2.1.3. Writing
2.1.3.1. Kerpoof is a site that provides tools for animation, drawing and movie creation.
2.1.3.2. Voki is a text to speech generator. It allows the user to create a talking character,that could be used for creating stories, reading a list of spelling words, teaching another language, or embedded into another website to tell non-readers what was going on.