Blog Post #5

Among the Web 2.0 tools discussed upon in the podcast, the one's I feel to be the most helpful in the classroom would be Twitter and YouTube. I feel these tools are most useful due to their popularity and simplicity for student use. Twitter and YouTube are websites that are part of the most used apps by young learners and I feel that for the level I intended to teach, high school history, they would be most helpful for my students and my development. By the time students reach high school, most of them would have a strong grip on the use of these websites. YouTube contains an abundance of educational videos that I could use for certain lesson to explain or emphasize the classroom topic and the fact that finding a video pertaining to the classroom topic is as simple as typing in the video title or topic theme helps tremendously. Twitter is a helpful tool because it's not only an easy to master tool for students to use to ask assignment question and interact, but it also a fun and enjoyable platform for students to talk, joke around, and enjoy their youth. The tool I think is not as useful is Diigo. I think that it's actually a really useful tool and can come in clutch for certain situations, but I don't think it's right for my teaching level. I feel like highschoolers would be less reluctant to use it, because I feel they would not want go through the signing up and learning new web browser tools that they wouldn't use. I also feel like some students would to take advantage of it and try to use it as a tool to cheat.

A Web 2.0 tool I would utilize as a teacher would have to be Prezi. I chose Prezi based on experiences with the tool. I used this Web 2.0 tool throughout high school and I personally feel that it's a step up from using Microsoft PowerPoint. Prezi let's presenters be a lot more creative when it comes to presenting their topic. It is more entertain and catches the eye of more students because it is a good change of pace then the same old classroom presentation. What I believe is the biggest contributing factor for using is it's video presentation settings. In PowerPoint it's almost impossible to put an actually video in the presentation, usually resulting in the placement of a video clip link which lead to exiting the slide show all together. In Prezi, you can place the actual video in the slide and play it from the slide, which means no leaving the presentation all together. Best part is that sign up is simple and free. Here's the link to the website: https://prezi.com/

The technological advancement that I feel will have the biggest impact is Gesture-Based Multitouch Displays. I feel like this is gonna have the biggest impact because it's already having a major effect on the learning right now...sorta. The placement of "Smartboards" in classrooms has already began in classrooms, which connects the bored and the computer giving teachers and students the ability to learn at the touch of the hands. I feel like this will grow over time, leading to actually touch screen boards where teachers could place pictures, figures, and words pertaining to the listen and students coming up to the board, touching the word or picture of there choice leading them to a video, games, or piece that pertains to the lesson at hand. That's how I feel it will be utilized, making learning so interactive, that it's at the tip of our fingers.