Thing 17 - More Web 2.0 Winners

The first time that I spoke to Ron about the 23 Things class I had no idea what Web 2.0 meant. He explained that instead of simply reading content an Internet viewer could also write and create content, interact with others on the Internet, become a part of a digital interplay. Now I look at the shortlist of Web 2.0 Winners (which is not so short) and am overwhelmed by the many ways in which people can interact with content and with others on the Internet. There are so many specialized areas that have these incredibly well developed, dense sites completely catering to people who want to create and share content in some certain way or around some specific topic. The Web 2.0 format truly empowers users to create and share. Now it is my time to determine how I can bring these offerings and skills into my classroom and how I can encourage students to continue to show mastery of content in such a rich and diverse format as the Web 2.0 arena. As if I haven't said and thought this enough in this course...WOW!

From the short list, I first checked out the education winners. The #2, #3, and honorable mention winners were all language acquisition sites. Woohoo! The sites include: Mango Languages, SpanishPod, and Livemocha. Being drawn to language learning I was very curious about each one. They offer instruction, audio segments, and even live people to help critique your Spanish but all are fee sites. These offer a variety of languages to so many that they have tremendous potential to assist those seeking to learn languages. The downside though is that the fee would not be cost effective to use these in the classroom unless you could transfer the cost of texts to the cost of the sites. It is an interesting concept. I just went through a new textbook adoption and am curious what will happen in 10-12 years when we look to adopt again. Will texts still be the primary delivery system within a classroom or will we be evaluating online programs? Exciting!