Teaching and Learning with Web 2.0

We can take advantage that we are living in a digital world to use Web 2.0 tools to teach our students. It is a creative resource, easy to learn and very catchy for the children, that give us diverse and rich solutions to motivate them.


On the one hand, we can use Web 2.0 apps to educate students to use these digital tools for their own learning. Everyday students are using social medias like Facebook, Twitter or Blogger in their life outside of school. The goal is that they use all these applications in an academic manner, establishing relationships with other students, and creating knowledge through those connections.

On the other hand, we can use them as teaching resources during our lessons. We can do creative presentations with online applications like Slideshare or Prezi. But we can also teach a lot of new tools that can be useful to learn English. There are a lot of applications that we can use. For example, I have recently learned about an online app. called Storybird, which allows us to sign up using a teacher account. This tool allows us to write a story using beautiful images from different illustrators. It's very simple. Someone starts a Storybird by writing a few words or grabbing a few images; then another student add more words and pictures, and then another one. This way, all students can write a collaborative classroom book by making their own contribution. And they can do it sitting side-by-side or from their own house, as housework. This way we will be catching the students attention at the same time that they will be learning to write in English correctly.

However, we have to pay attention in the way we use these applications. We must be sure that we are familiar with the applications that we are going to show to our students before we can use them in class. The more prepared we are, the better. Once we know the application very well, we can show it to the class. But before they start to use it, they must think about what they are going to do with this tool (with Storybird they have to think first about the story they want to write). So they have to prepare the activity before they can use it.

And of course, as teachers, we can use Web 2.0 to teach ourselves, by sharing, researching and finding new ideas and resources from other teachers and colleagues.