Top 10 web 2.0 tools for teachers

WEB 2. You can use most of them in your classroom and the rest, you will just have to recommend them to your students. Technology is created to simplify our lives, and there is always more than one way to use technology in education, though I have briefly explained how to use each of these Web 2.

You can also contribute and build this list by using the commenting box below. Sign in. Forgot your password? Get help. A must-have tool for teaching presentations, this is one web 2. Including photographs, diagrams, flowcharts and being able to zoom in and out makes presentations far more engaging and visual than ever before. What are your favourite Web 2. Let us know in the comments box below! Images courtesy of Flickr, Neal. Laura is a writer and recent Cambridge graduate with particular experience in the area of education technology.

She has worked with a variety of different education companies and is active in the 'edtech' community on Twitter, so she prides herself on always being in touch with the latest developments and exciting new tools in e-learning.

Your email address will not be published. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Skip to content. What is Web 2. Poll Everywhere This invaluable resource gives a new lease of life to student surveys and polls. Animoto Brilliantly easy to use, Animoto produces high-quality videos from pictures and text, set against chosen backgrounds and music. Wikis can turn out to be an amazing productivity tool if you allow your customers, suppliers and employees to regularly exchange information and knowledge with each other, through them.

They can in fact become the digital knowledge base of a company. However, one thing that must be factored in here is that there is a certain level of internal monitoring required in case of wikis, especially in case of larger organizations. Project collaboration is by far the most effective and commonly seen use of wikis. Considered by far the most powerful and easiest tool for blogging purposes, and also a comprehensive website CMS Content Management System , hundreds of thousands of blogs on the Internet are created using WordPress.

Blogger on the other hand is another highly popular blog publishing service which enables you to create multi user blogs, featuring timestamp entries. Originally a product of Pyra Labs, Blogger was taken over by Google in the year All blogs created on Blogger are hosted in the form of a subdomains at blogspot.

These two websites go hand in hand when it comes to creation of Web 2. Both provide amazing creative platforms for creation of blogs, either for business purposes or just as a hobby. Many people use WordPress and Blogger for creation and maintenance of blogs that are primarily used as a sales and marketing tool.

Other than that, many use these blogs in the form of a productivity tool for sharing and recording of information. More information: Wordpress. Project collaboration used to be very limited back in those days. However, entrepreneurs of today can make use of efficient web-based project management Web 2. You simply need to sign up and begin the project management process.

The payments are also on a monthly basis and is there is no huge initial investment involved. In case of larger business teams or more complicated security requirements, you might need to spend some extra time to set up relevant online tools. Basecamp offers all the major project management features people expect from such a tool. Hence, you can easily manage various projects, plan them well and assigned team tasks for it. Apart from that, you can also schedule milestones and set up various to-do lists.

More information: Basecamp. You can customize their characters and make them look like cartoons, animals, historical figures and even yourself! There is even a Voki Classroom which you can join by paying a nominal fee and get access to more number of options, apart from the ability to control and change the privacy settings. Normally all Vokis have a 60 second recording limitation, and you can use either a computer-generated voice or your own.

The voice can be added through different methods including typed-in text, phone recording, audio files or through a microphone. Many professionals and students use Voki as a part of bigger projects or for completing quick assignments.

Even if you use the free version, you can use all kinds of characters and options to create an impressive avatar. The appearance of the stock characters can be customized and the background images can be altered. These avatars could then be posted on to a shared student website, where they can be viewed and reviewed by the teachers and students. More information: Voki. Animoto works as an excellent solution to this problem.

It is essentially a cloud-based video-creation Web 2. The resulting video can be shared easily on Facebook, Twitter or via email. There is a wide range of customization options in the form of layout, colors and audio. This tool is mainly targeted at amateurs and individuals who wish to create pro-level videos, but want a simple and easy-to-use tool to do so.

This tool is available on Facebook and in the form of iPad, android and iOS apps. There is also an Animoto plug-in available for the Adobe Lightroom. More information: Animoto.

Rather than using a sequence of slides or some type of animated video, Prezi presentations enable you to zoom in and out of a large sized canvas, starting by focusing on a set of videos or images, or a block of text, and simply switching to the other images, videos or text on the canvas, whenever you want. You are allowed to zoom out of the entire canvas at any point of time, or zoom in to check any details. It delivers a very engaging and dynamic effect, making deeper user interactions possible, quite different from the regular slide after slide presentations.

Prezi can even be used in the form of a collaborative brainstorming tool. Just like the original Prezi, Prezi Business can also be used for creating eye-catching presentations, enabling you to connect with audiences in a more engaging manner. However, how it differs from the original is that the design work flow is streamlined and there are some new features meant for efficient creation and delivery of presentations. More information: Prezi. Members of a community can be provided access to different documents as long as they have a computer or a smart phone connected to the Internet.

Additional members can be invited to join in and share the documents too.