Welcome to our latest bulletin on great web 2.0 tools to use in the English classroom. If you're new to our bulletin, or want to catch up on previous posts (including our last one on Megan Gale's twitter controversy, which you can look at in class with your students as an issue), click here. This week we actually want our post to be interactive: so we are using two interactive tools to both share ideas and demonstrate the effectiveness of the tools themselves.
Wall Wisher is a great way to get everyone participating in class discussion and sharing ideas. With this tool, a user can create a virtual 'sticky board' that other users can visit and post sticky notes on. No account is required to use this tool. When a user creates a new board, it has a unique URL which can be shared with others (the sharing can be restricted or totally public). This works well in class for brainstorming sessions where you want everyone to contribute ideas. As each student puts up a note, everyone else will be able to see it. We've created our own sticky board here - http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/filmstostudy - and we'd love you all to visit and add a sticky about different films you are studying in your classroom. That way you see how the tool works and we can share some great ideas. All you need to do is click on the link, then click somewhere on the page and create a new sticky.
The next tool is similar. This is called 'Lino It.' Like Wall Wisher, this is a tool that creates virtual sticky note boards. The key difference between the tools is that Lino It allows users to write longer sticky notes and to colour code them. Lino It also requires the user who creates the board to have an account. Once an account holding user creates a board, they can then share it publicly with anyone in the same was as Wall Wisher. It's a great tool to use when you want students to share more detailed ideas or to share resources if they are all researching a similar topic or issue. Students can keep a track of the different websites they have visited by putting stickies on a class board with a link to the site and notes about what was good about it. Users can also stick documents, videos and images on the sticky board. We've set up a board here - http://linoit.com/users/jpinnuck/canvases/Great%20websites%20. We'd like you to share on the board some ideas about great websites you've been using in your classroom. All you need to do is click on the link, then click somewhere on the page and create a new sticky.
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