Web 2.0 in the classroom

Believe it or not, I voluntarily gave up 3 days of my holiday to go to a conference for work. Yup. People think teachers have 13 weeks of holiday a year. I can tell you that we really only get about 6 weeks - which is still a lot more than most people, I know. The rest is spent doing school stuff... everything from filing to preparing lessons to cleaning your classroom... or to attending conferences and taking sports tours.

Anyway, back to the conference...

I went to most of the ones dealing with using Web 2.0 tools in the classroom. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, Web 2.0 tools are all the things we use to keep in contact with each other - like this blog. They can include anything from Skype to MXit, blogs and Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flikr, etc, etc, etc. Since I'm hugely into this stuff anyway, I've really been wondering about how to use this stuff more in the classroom.

Hmm... okay. It's now about 2 days since I wrote the above paragraphs. Scary how time flies!

So, rather than telling you what I was thinking about, let me tell you what I've done. I've signed up for MXit (did you know it's a South African product? Go SA!) and I've given my details to my matric class. Yup, we are now chatting about school related stuff via MXit. They are competely blown away by the fact that a) I'm on MXit, and b) that I'm prepared to help them by meeting them where they are.

If you don't know about MXit, then let me introduce you. This is a cell phone GPRS application (ie, your phone has to be able to access the web) that works in a similar fashion to Skype. You can have a virtual conversation with your friends for a fraction of the cost of sms/ texting (I don't remember the exact details, but it's something like 10c for 2 hours). Of course, you still pay your subscriber rate for your GPRS connection. Like Skype, it has a feature that allows you to sms your friends when you log in, to let them know you are on MXit and they should come and join you. The nice thing about MXit, is that you can only be contacted by people you have already added to your contact list. ie, you have to know the cell phone number of the person you are adding. (That rule doesn't apply to the chat room facility.)

Today, one of my RSS feeds was asking the question about the purpose of blogs, suggesting using an educational blog to post homework for the kids, or videos for them to look at, or your PPTs, or lesson plans, or whatever. At first I was quite sceptical, but the more I've thought about it, the more I've seen the sense. Of course, it would require a lot more work from me, but it would be a useful way to keep in contact with the kids. So I'm going to give that one a bit more thought.