Our second guest speaker for EDU 653: The Read/Write Web, was Dr. Brian Dixon, from the Mentorship Academy, Baton Rouge, LA. Dr. Dixon, utilized some Web 2.0 technologies during our lecture. The one that piqued my interest the most was polleverywhere.com. I immediately wanted to utilize this in the classroom, the idea that students could use their cellphones in a classroom setting and not get in trouble is a first step in teaching them how to use a cell responsibly. Dr. Dixon used this technology to decide where to take the lecture, he asked us what we would want to know the most about, showed us a series of choices and how to text-in your response. Following this he discussed Ning.com, the best way to describe it seems to be the WordPress for social site creation. While I do not have any plans to use Ning at this time, I have been a member of Classroom 2.0 since 2008 (which is powered by Ning). I understand how the site functions, and I can see it being very useful in the future; I just don’t believe my school is at the stage where it would be feasible to use.
Overall, I appreciated both guest speakers in EDU 653. Its very beneficial to hear from real world people using these Web 2.0 technologies in order to facilitate learning.
