Web 2.0: useful tools for teaching

Web 2.0 refers to the second generation of websites that allows users to interact and collaborate with one another as content creators in a virtual community using, wikis, blogs, web applications, social networking sites or video sharing sites.

Other examples of web 2.0 sites are Word Clouds and Voki. Both of them are useful tools to innovate in the classroom and they are very easy to manage.

As regards word clouds, they are the visual representation of a short text. There are different online free generator which allows you to create an image where the words are mixed and have different shapes, colours and size. These features vary according to the most important words. Which means that you can choose the words you would like to highlight or make your students pay attention to.

Voki is a web tool in which you can create a personalize “avatar”. In this web, you can choose either to record yourself or to insert a text and Voki does it for you. It is a useful teaching resource since teachers can either do different activities or ask students to work with it.

Here we would like to share with you a didactic sequence thought for a group of seventh graders, in which we include word clouds and voki so as to teach the seasons and the weather .

First of all, we are going to show students a word cloud as a pre-reading activity, in order to activate students prior knowledge about the topic and to anticipate the content of the text. The word cloud simple visual emphasis will allow us to highlight the most important words and help students preview what text might be about.

After working with the word cloud, students will work with a text in which they have to complete with the seasons and the weather. Before students read the text,we will work with the meaning of the words they need to use to complete the blanks and then we will work with the pronunciation of those words.

This is the picture dictionary students will use to complete the text.

This is the text in which students have to complete the blanks.

Once students complete the text, they will check their answers with a voki (this voki will be created by us). Also, as a post reading activity, students will create a voki in order to check pronunciation. The task consists in choosing an avatar and record themselves describing their favourite season of the year. We might do this activity on the computer lab so students can use the microphone.

Reference

• Rouse,M. (n.d) "What is Web 2.0?"