"If students are to achieve their full potential, they must have opportunities to engage and develop a much richer set of skills... While there is still a need for more empirical evidence that these factors can be taught as transferable competencies across situations, there are a wide range of promising program and approaches"
This quote really boils down to what this semester in the Internet Tools course is all about. We are going to learn internet tools to change practice and really prepare students for the changing dynamics of our world. Web 2.0 tools allow students to practice new skills in creating projects and they allow students to experience places that they would not otherwise be able to visit. When I think about the tools that I am excited to learn in the course, I struggle to come up with one that I don't already know. Web 2.0 is a speciality of mine that I am constantly learning and using in my days as an instructional coach. I think what might excite me the most is if we come across a tool that I don't already know.
I use Web 2.0 tools on a regular basis as an instructional , and I used them in my own classroom. In my current roll, I coach teachers on how to use these tools to really increase engagement with students who are now growing up with them. I think where Web 2.0 is effective is that it gives digital learners options to do things like create. In my own classroom, all of my student activities revolved around student creation and digital tools. I used digital tools to both engage students and let them create. Students learned new content through Touchcast videos and they expanded on that knowledge through Youtube videos. It used creation assignments in order engage students and to teach them new skills. The way that I saw it is if I can both let students experience content and build new skills, I would actually be preparing students for the real world.
Web 2.0 is something that is going to be more and more important as both learners and professions are changing. When I think of learners, I think of my own children who have grown up with devices since a very young age. They will need something completely different then I did. What is good about that is that the real world needs 21st century learners. Take the push into coding as an example. Almost every business today needs a website or app to be successful, and that means they need coders. The great thing about teaching this way to is that adaptive technology can be used in order to support all learners, so it gives everyone a chance. In the end, it gets us closer to No Child Left Behind!