Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms

Richardson's Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms is a great resource for the twenty-first century teacher. His recognition of the changing and evolving learner in an increasingly technological world sets the stage for the excellent step-by-step directions with defined vocabulary. It is easy to navigate, and written at a level appropriate for beginning or advanced users of technology.
This text has been an excellent resource for both my graduate work in Educational Technology, as well as implementing new technology and web 2.0 resources in the classroom. It opens up a whole new door to collaborative learning, incorporating the tools that not only are useful, but will peak the interest of a new generation of learners.
Along with the step-by-step directions with defined vocabulary, there are other resources useful for the classroom teacher including sample letters home to parents explaining the use of numerous technologies in the classroom, and how it will help prepare students for the future.
This is not only a how to text, it is an idea resource tied to pedagogy and learning goals for using the mentioned tools. Richardson discusses weblogs and student blogging. This is a tool many use in education currently. Richardson brings the RSS (Real Simple Syndication) and the blog together or education. He suggests using blogging and RSS feeds to collect projects and homework electronically. His ideas are practical, and ready for immediate implementation. Even social networking sites are analyzed and aligned with educational goals.
In the end, Richardson introduces the new kind of literacy to the classroom. There is no longer one way to write or contribute using technology; there are thousands of tools available. Richardson sets educators up for success in using new and innovative tools in the classroom in order to foster a positive and collaborative learning community. - Rick DeCarr, 5th Grade Teacher, Educational Technology Specialist

I am an elementary school teacher who values technology integration in classrooms. Initially, the book begins slow with an overabundant amount of details about the simplicity of blogging. Some advice is given to lead novices in the right direction tailored to their blogging interests.

An aside: As I was searching on the Internet for safe and secure blog sites for young students, I found this website: http://mhetherington.net/blogs/?p=8 which was created by a middle school teacher with similar interests in student technology involvement. It details steps that can lead any teacher into a free (yet time consuming) setup for students to use. (I used this website to create my own blog site for my 32 fourth grade students and it worked marvelously!)

The author then introduced the power of wikis. I really appreciated the real-life accounts from actual educators who use wikis for group projects with students. I did feel a like the examples came mostly from secondary education and did not focus heavily on primary student possibilities with wikis. PB wiki (peanut butter wiki) for educators was explained and the book offered some great resources for teachers on a low budget with wiki interests.

Next, RSS feeds were explained. Although much of the explanations of RSS feeds were still above my head in understanding, I learned a number of values in using RSS feeds with the Web. One of the examples used in the book was that one could subscribe to all RSS feeds in Cyberspace about a topic of interest. If a person is interested in "Global Warming in California," they can subscribe to any place on the Internet that may use those words as an update when stories or writing is produced and submitted on websites you may not know existed. RSS feeding is a promising method of allowing the computer to do the searching for you.

During my reading of this book, I posted two blogs (on blogger.com) about my reflections. Within 3 days of my writing, the author of this book, Will Richardson, posted a comment on my blog thanking me for reading his book. My inferences told me he may have an RSS feed in Cyberspace that brings him news about whenever information is posted about himself or his book. I was impressed by his comment as this showed me he practiced what he preached in his book and really values the technology he promotes.

By the end of the book, podcasting, screencasting, and videos were introduced as well. In all, the book catered more toward novices and technology learners, not experts. Experts may find this book a bit juvenile, while I enjoyed it for its practicality and rapid information. My favorite part of the book stands at the providing of websites and tools that can be searched just seconds after reading about them. I found that using this book as a user's manual was helpful for technology novices on the go.

Finally a book all about how to incorporate the newest in technology in the classroom. Combines info that's been floating around on the internet into a concise book and an easy read. Many great ideas.

I started reading Will Richardson's book to educate myself about how teachers and instructors have been utilizing web tools into their curriculum. In October 2007, I attended the Computers in Libraries conference and participated in a workshop called "New Research Tools" where they discussed practical and successful cases of educators using various online tools, like Flickr, Clipmarks, or RSS readers.

As a librarian, a 2nd year educator, and one who personally uses these different tools, I really am interested in incorporating these tools into the curriculum.

During the course of reading this book, I have started reading Will Richardson's blog - Web-logged - as well as other educator and librarian blogs. This book has inspired me to try to incorporate the different tools that I enjoy using personally into the curriculum.

Richardson's enthusiasm for these various web tools is conveyed through each chapter. He devotes chapters to each tool. For example, there is a chapter on Blogs, one on RSS and one on wikis. It is easily explained and whether you use these tools already or not, his writing is easily accessible. I have been promoting this book to my colleagues and have also pointed some of them to his blog.

His chapter on Wikis has caused me to reassess my hesitance towards utilizing Wikipedia as a valid source of information. I am still skeptical but one should be skeptical when approaching print media as well.

The chapters are short and easy to understand. He has an excellent list of resources and great examples of people who are already incorporating the read/write web into their classrooms. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in Web 2.0, education and technology.

This is a great book. I am thoroughly enjoying every page! It is giving me so much inspiration and instruction on how to use these tools. Great examples and resources too.