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As educators, the use of Web 2.0 tools is transforming our work, and more specifically the way we support students in the classroom. As schools bring more technology into their classrooms, teachers will in turn strive to put more technology in their students' hands. That is, if they are prepared to do so.

Web 2.0 Tools are online software programs that allow users to do a number of different things. They can be used to teach curriculum content, store data, create/edit video, edit photos, collaborate and so much more. These programs are often free and are used by teachers, students, and sometimes parents, both in and out of the classroom, on a pretty regular basis.

The question then becomes, are educators prepared to use these tools? How can educators best plan to incorporate Web 2.0 Tools into their classroom? How can they best plan to ensure effective tech integration? How can they be sure that the tool remains a support piece to their instructional practice, rather than a replacement?

These are important questions that we need to be able to answer for our own work, but more importantly so that we can continuously strive to be a 21st century educator for our very important clients: our students. The use of Web 2.0 Tools to support instruction is vital. How we use these tools is going to make a critical difference in how we measure our students success and how they are supported to meet 21st century skill sets.

If you are new to this concept, don't feel bad. Embracing the use of tech integration in our daily work beyond word processing and power point presentations is still new to many educators. However, it's important that we accept the fact that Web 2.0 tools are here to stay. The sooner we learn to harness their wonderful power, and how they can bring learning alive in the classroom, the better.

As we talk about Web 2.0 tools, one point I want to stress is that we need to remember that it's not about the specific tools themselves that we use with students, but why, and when the tool is needed. Ideally there also needs to be a culture within the school that values technology use in the classroom. As a former school principal, I can guarantee you that the leadership in the school must also be modeling the use of technology, providing professional development in this area, and seek to build a school community that enables and values the effective use of technology for teaching and learning.

In the spirit of technology for teaching, I want to offer you 8 great Web 2.0 educational tools that I encourage you to seek out, practice with, and learn to incorporate into your work in the classroom. Will it take time to learn to use these tools? Yes. Are the benefits worth the time? Absolutely!
8 Great Web 2.0 tools to support you in the classroom:
Glogster is a great creativity site whose tag line is "poster yourself". A 'glog' is basically an online poster web page. Students can combine text, pictures, graphics, video, and audio to create an interactive online poster. They can click and drag items out of Glogster's resources, choose their own backgrounds, pictures, text boxes, videos, web links, and more! Glogster has a very simple-to-use interface. The final glog can be hosted by Glogster or you can embed it into a wiki, blog, or class web site. ( click here to watch a 2 minute EdTech Talk about Glogster.)

This site was designed specifically for elementary and middle school teachers who want to provide each of their students with their own, unique blog. Kidblog's simple, powerful tools allow students to publish posts and participate in discussions within a secure classroom blogging community. Teachers maintain complete control over student blogs.

Linoit is a great service that provides its registered users with virtual "stickies" that can be placed on a canvas or bulletin board area. Both lino users and non-registered guests can post stickies on the canvas. The great thing about linoit is that you can use it at three levels: public, limited access and private.( Click here for a sample of one of my recent canvases.)
LiveBinders
Livebinders were created so that anyone, but especially educators, could do with digital information what we do with the papers on our desk - organize it into nice containers - like 3-ring binders on a shelf. With these online-binders, you can also upload your documents and easily combine them with your links in a neat and organized way. (Here's one of my livebinders.)

This web tool is an easy solution for teachers to open up their classroom and their students to a world way beyond their campus. With Skype, students can learn from other students, connect with other cultures, and expand their knowledge in amazing ways by communicating through their computer with a webcam.

This is a fun and easy-to-use tool for creating short, visual stories. Students can select artwork, drag and organize photos, and add their own text. These creations can then be published on the web with adjustable privacy settings. There is also the option to allow comments, which is perfect for teachers to encourage student collaboration. (Here's one of my Storybirds.)

VoiceThread is a collaborative, multimedia slideshow that allows students to comment on images, documents, and video through text, video, and audio files. Teachers can set up groups and classes as well as moderate comments, embed to blogs, and export to audio files. It is an easy way to differentiate instruction while providing engaging choices to "show" learning, engage in conversation, and think openly and critically about content. ( Click here to see "What's a voice thread anyway?")

Teachers and students can generate word clouds that show prominent words in any body of text. Just enter text you have gathered from students, or even a URL, to see a summary of what the text is about. Wordle also allows you to change the appearance of your word cloud by the shape, font, color, and organization. ( Click here to see a short video on how to use Wordle in the classroom.)
Wetoku
Wetoku is a web service or Web 2.0 tool out of Korea that provides a simple platform for interviewing someone via the Internet. Collaborating globally is a must for our students and connecting can be a challenge. Wetoku makes doing an interview as easy as filling out some basic information, creating an interview session and then sending the creative interview session's URL to the interviewee. Once the recording is done, the interviewer can embed the copy of the URL into a blog or website. You will need a web-cam to use this tool. ( for a video on how to use wetoku.)

Okay, what do you think? Still not sure where all these Web 2.0 tools fit into your school or district standards? Well for those who are still skeptical, ISTE has developed a great set of educational technology standards for teachers. These standards, called ISTE NETS, seek to move beyond the tool and address the bigger picture of technology in the classroom and in the professional practice. You can take a look at them here.

I hope you've enjoyed taking a look at these 8 amazing tools!

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As educators, the use of Web 2.0 tools is transforming our work, and more specifically the way we support students in the classroom. As schools bring more technology into their classrooms, teachers will in turn strive to put more technology in their students' hands. That is, if they are prepared to do so.

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10 Free Tech Tools & Websites Every Teacher Should Know About

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Confession: I was a late tech adopter. I didn’t own a computer until I was in college. I couldn’t record on the VCR, and I didn’t have a smartphone until about 2009. As a new teac…

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Web 2.0 tools and online utilities have become more full-featured and useful over the years. Here are some links to various online tools to help both teaching and learning. The online tools all...

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Listen to this post as a podcast:
Sponsored by Kiddom

Around October of every year, while teachers are waist-deep in curriculum, kids are thinking about what they're going to be for Halloween, and retail stores are already gathering steam for Christmas, I'm thinking about one thing: technology.

That's because every January I put out a fresh version of The Teacher's Guide to Tech, my uber-fabulous directory of tech tools. All year long, I take notes on new tools I hear about from teachers I talk to, in conversations on Twitter, and by paying really close attention at conferences. Then, from October through early January, I start figuring out which ones are going to make it into the guide. This year I added 60 new tools, and I'm so excited to share them with you.

As I have done every year since 2015, I'm going to shine a spotlight on six of the tools I added to this year's guide: They're not all brand-new, but I think each one could make a real difference in the way your students learn or the things they produce. One of them is super trendy right now, but it deserves the attention. One of them takes you into the past in a way that can be breathtaking. Three can be used in a dozen different ways and in all subject areas. And one-I would bet money on this-you're going to want to try right away.

And so, without further ado, let's begin.
flipgrid.com
OK, so this one I have to get out of the way first. Even though I don't think Flipgrid actually needs any more attention than it's gotten lately, there's just no way I'm writing a post about up-and-coming tech tools without including it. For me, this has been hands-down the most talked about tech tool of the past year, and for good reason.

So what is Flipgrid? It's an app where someone, usually a teacher, poses a question or prompt, and students respond to it with short videos. Once they've finished their video, they can leave responses to other students' videos.

This tool would be a great way to get students talking about any topic, reflect on a book or film, or ask questions about something you're exploring in class.

At a time when we are all getting less and less comfortable with face-to-face communication, preferring instead to talk through text, Flipgrid gives us a way to bring our real voices, our actual faces, our true, less-edited selves back into play.
insertlearning.com
With this tool, you can basically take any page on the Internet and turn it into a lesson. Suppose you find a great article from The Guardian that you'd like students to read, but you'd also like to ask them a few questions about it, add a bit of commentary of your own, and insert a related video. With InsertLearning, you can do all of that right on the article.

InsertLearning, formerly called DocentEDU, is an extension you add to your Chrome browser. Once it's there, turning any web page into a lesson can be done in minutes. You start with a web page of any kind, then highlight text, add notes, and embed your own questions-either multiple-choice or open-ended-that students answer right on the page. You can also embed other content like YouTube videos, ThingLink images, flashcards from Quizlet, mind maps from Coggle, even videos you record straight from your webcam.

Once an InsertLearning lesson is created, you assign it to classes of students with a special code or through Google Classroom, and student responses are sent to a teacher dashboard, where you can grade them right inside the app. You can also share lessons with other teachers, so they can copy and edit them for their own use.

I think we're getting beyond the point where we count on one platform to do everything for us. Instead, teachers are probably better off using different tools depending on what best fits the learning goals at any given time. A tool like InsertLearning would be a fantastic addition to your collection of resources for creating engaging, dynamic lessons.
bookcreator.com
Book Creator is a beautiful, flexible tool that allows students of any age or skill level to create, publish, and share online books.

Creating books using this tool can be as simple or complex as you make it. Students who prefer more structure can choose a comic book layout and insert Google images straight from the app into locked panels. Those who want more flexibility can choose a completely blank page and upload their own artwork. Students can customize the font, add shapes and stickers, hyperlink the text to other online resources, and import audio and video files.

When the book is ready to be published, the pages turn like a real book, and the audio and video play right inside the app.

This tool would also be wonderful for teacher use. You can create books and place them into either a private library-just for you-or create a public library that your students can join by using a code. Within the shared library, anyone can create books to be shared among the other members.

Book Creator really could work for any age level and in any content area: Students can create books to show how a key science concept impacts their daily lives, explore a social justice issue throughout history, study examples of math principles at work in the real world, or craft an original, illustrated story. A book could chronicle a student's journey through a genius hour project, showcase a student's artwork or photography in a portfolio, or record class memories after going on a field trip.

If you've gotten stuck in a never-ending cycle of worksheets and multiple-choice tests, introducing a tool like Book Creator could open up some incredible possibilities for students to demonstrate and share their learning.
newseumed.org
Social studies and history teachers, you're going to love this one.

Produced by Newseum, a news museum located in Washington, D.C., NewseumED houses an incredible online collection of primary sources, news artifacts, and lessons that help teachers teach media literacy, civics, and all aspects of the First Amendment, giving you and your students an up-close look at history.

So if you're looking for how a German newspaper covered Jesse Owens' win at the 1936 Olympics, you can find that. The front cover of Life magazine capturing the very beginning of a 1965 march for civil rights in Selma, Alabama? They have that. An image of Abe Lincoln without a beard? Check.

The site gives you several ways to search for content-by state, century, theme, topics, type of resource, and so on. Once you find something you'd like your students to use-a map, a newspaper, a quiz-you can share it with them using a URL that lasts for two weeks but can be renewed an unlimited number of times.

If you find a lesson you'd like to teach, handouts are there for you to download, print, or copy, and everything has been aligned to NCSS, NCHS, NCTE, and Common Core Standards.

When I first saw this site, I thought about way back when the Internet first became a thing that regular people used. We used to talk about how theoretically, you could go online and find just about any document you could think of; like, the whole Library of Congress would be on there. Except back around 1994 when I tried to find stuff, it ended up not being that easy. When I look at a site like NewseumED, that vision is starting to look more like a reality now.

At a time when the concept of "truth" has become pretty shaky, having access to primary sources has never been more important. NewseumED deserves a place on every history teacher's list of go-to resources.
autodraw.com
OK, I have to admit: This one I included just because it's so frickin' cool. Someone showed it to me on Twitter one day and I freaked out. I do think it has some educational value, and I'll get to that in a minute, but first let me just tell you about it.

AutoDraw is a tool that uses artificial intelligence to guess what you're trying to draw. You start with a blank screen, begin sketching something, and AutoDraw gives you a strip of professionally illustrated images to choose from, based on what the tool thinks you're trying to draw.

Every time you add more detail to your own sketch, AutoDraw's guesses change. When you see an image that matches what you're going for, you can choose it, then add color, resize it, or basically manipulate it however you want. If you choose to, you can turn OFF the automatic feature and just sketch without any assistance, but seriously, that feature is a thing to behold.

When your masterpiece is complete, you can automatically download it as a PNG file, share it on Twitter or Facebook, or grab a unique URL and share it that way.

So here's where I see some educational value beyond this tool just being neat-o: Images help us remember things. I've talked on this site about the value of dual coding, visualization, and nonlinguistic representation. A tool like AutoDraw fits in there: If you want students to add doodles to their notes, and they get frustrated with their own drawing skills, this tool can help. If you like to add icons or illustrations to your classroom materials, but you don't have the time to create your own or look all over the Internet for pre-made ones, this tool can help.

Beyond that, if you have early finishers in class or need something fresh for preferred activity time, giving students ten minutes to play around on AutoDraw would be great. And if students need illustrations for projects, videos, or books, AutoDraw can help them create those.

Also? Really cool.
sway.com
First we had PowerPoint. Then Prezi came along and shook things up quite a bit. Then a little over two years ago, Microsoft quietly introduced Sway, a unique platform that gives you dynamic, almost cinematic presentations that have the feel of a modern website.

You start by selecting a template, a topic, or a document you already have on your computer-or start from scratch. You work within a storyline, getting all your information typed in, images and videos inserted, forms added, and content embedded. The program is set up so that you can add content from the app without having to toggle between tabs. This includes Creative Commons images, so you don't have to worry about copyright laws.

Once your storyline is complete, you can design your Sway: Choose from a number of styles or use the Remix button until the preview of your work looks exactly how you want it. You can choose for your Sway to scroll up and down, left to right, or be presented in slides just like PowerPoint.

Sway would be another nice option for presenting your own content or offering students a different way to share their learning or produce creative projects of their own.

All the tools, all in one place.

If you're not yet familiar with the Teacher's Guide to Tech, let me introduce you: It's my encyclopedia of educational technology, a 329-page PDF you can keep on your home computer, work computer, or any device that will read a PDF.

The whole purpose of the guide is to make it fast and easy for you to navigate the world of ed tech. Once you start using it, you won't believe how much you'll learn, or how FAST you'll learn it!

Where to Get It

Single-User Licenses:
If you just want a copy for yourself, you can get a copy atTeachers Pay Teachers or on Teachable.

Multi-User Licenses:
To get the guide for your team, school, or even district, you can save a lot by getting multi-user licenses. Although these are available onTeachers Pay Teachers, I am offering deeper discounts for multiple licenses on Teachable.
Purchase on Teachable Purchase on TpT

Learn something new every week.
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One of them is super trendy. One takes you into the past. Three can be used in a dozen different ways. And one you're going to want to try right away. Come see.

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Teacher educators are in a constant state of revisiting and revising their teacher education programs. Historically, research, educational policy, and accreditation requirements have been the impetus for renewal in teacher education. For the past 20 years, technology innovation has played an increasingly significant role in rethinking teacher education. This article outlines recent changes in a social studies teacher education program and the role Web 2.0 tools played in developing meaningful activities centered on the development of sound technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPCK). This paper describes the experience of 18 preservice social studies teachers over the course of one semester, using Web 2.0 tools to design and implement a digital flexbook.
Technology Integration in a Preservice Methods Class
Preparing teachers to use technology effectively in the classroom is a central issue the field of education faces in the 21st century (Bolick, Berson, Coutts, & Heinecke, 2003). Preservice teachers must be proficient in using technology for their productivity (e.g., taking attendance, presenting content) but also prepared to integrate technology effectively into instruction. Often, however, the integration of technology into preservice teacher education programs is the exception rather than the norm (Cantu, 2000). As a result, preservice teachers often graduate with limited knowledge of how to integrate technology effectively into the classroom curriculum (Cantu, 2000).

In terms of social studies, if preservice educators are to develop instructional social studies strategies that move beyond traditional approaches, it is imperative that teacher candidates have opportunities to engage in pedagogy that uses and integrates technology in a constructivist manner (Ehman, 2001). Preservice social studies teachers need to see technology effectively modeled and have meaningful opportunities to use technology if they are going to integrate technology into their future social studies teaching (Bates, 2008; Diem, 2002). Therefore, teacher educators must effectively engage and model appropriate strategies for technology integration (Bolick et al., 2003).

One way to achieve this goal is to use Web 2.0 tools in the design and construction of a digital flexbook. The creation of a digital flexbook can provide a more inclusive and customizable approach to content construction than other traditional pedagogical devices.
Digital Flexbooks
In spring 2009, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced plans for the state to begin developing digital flexbooks for high school classes that would be available to public schools across the state (Paul, 2009). The term flexbook refers to the free, nonlinear, highly customizable and easy-to-use nature of open source textbooks (Fletcher, 2010). The main motivation for the digital flexbook initiative was to help pull California out of its current economic crisis. The Governor said the state could save $400 million if its 2 million high school students used digital flexbooks instead of traditional print textbooks (Kingsbury & Galloway, 2006). Schwarzenegger also touted other educational benefits of the initiative, such as increased collaboration among school districts, interactive classrooms, increased teacher creativity, and reduced health concerns for students who on a typical school day carry 30% or more of their body weight in paper textbooks (Golshani, 2008; Surdin, 2009).

Proponents of digital flexbooks argued that much of the cost going into traditional textbooks is wrapped up in hidden instructional costs, such as the instructional time wasted on collecting and maintaining books, students not doing work because they forgot their books, and districts having to spend thousands of dollars to store old books (Salpeter, 2009). The potential cost savings is significant and a major reason digital flexbooks are beginning to eat into the $6 billion a year business of paper textbook adoption.

Obvious barriers to a digital flexbook initiative exist, such as finding the money and time for professional development with teachers, student access to technology at home, and slow-moving school and state bureaucracies. Yet, in spite of these barriers some states and school districts are beginning to implement digital content in significant ways (Fletcher, 2010). Since California announced its digital initiative plans, the states of Indiana, Florida, Virginia, and Texas have considered legislation that allows districts the flexibility to spend funds previously earmarked for textbooks on digital content (Salpeter, 2009).

Although publishers of traditional textbooks have carted out "digital textbooks," which are really just paper textbooks in digital format, proponents of digital flexbooks hail the ability of districts and teachers to customize content that more accurately reflects their community, their students, and their learning objectives (Young, 2009). Indeed, one of the distinct advantages of using digital content instead of traditional textbooks is the ability for users to update, edit, and expand the digital content at any given moment based on real-world events.

In addition, a digital flexbook can provide a community of users collaborative space to construct knowledge in new and different ways. Digital textbooks that publishers have created, on the other hand, restrict content creation to a small number of scholars and editors. In this way, digital textbooks often reproduce traditional teacher-textbook-centered pedagogy while digital flexbooks facilitate student-centered teaching and learning.

Finally, a digital flexbook provides users with an easy-to-use platform for embedding and uploading multimedia components such as YouTube videos, student created media, flash games, and image galleries. Thus, the development of a digital flexbook embedded in social studies can engage preservice teachers in the construction and interpretation of history through the exploration and critique of primary and secondary sources. (Editor's Note: Website URLs can be found in the Resources section at the end of this article.)
Theoretical Perspectives
While scholars have not agreed on a singular definition of Web 2.0, Tim O'Reilly (2005) posited that Web 2.0 technology can be seen as "an ongoing transition of the World Wide Web from a collection of static websites to a full-fledged computing platform serving Web applications to end users" (para. 2). Applications that have been termed Web 2.0 applications include video sharing sites, wikis, blogs, podcasts, and social networking sites like Twitter (Richardson, 2006a). Taken together, Web 2.0 applications are radically changing the way users create, share, collaborate and publish content through the Internet (Richardson, 2006b).

One of the great benefits of Web 2.0, or the Read/Write Web, is that users can work together to construct a knowledge base without having to work in the complicated language of HTML code (Heafner & Friedman, 2008; McLeod & Vasinda, 2008). For much of the past 20 years, technology integration in education, specifically web-based materials, has been beholden to those with the knowledge and skills to use HTML code (McLeod & Vasinda, 2008). Through the easy-to-use "what you see is what you get" (WYSIWG) interface, Web 2.0 tools have opened the door for a variety of students in various contexts to create knowledge in visual, aural, spatial, and textual forms.

Web 2.0 also fosters agency and democratic participation with students. Students do not have to be passive recipients of information but can become equal partners in the learning process as they collaborate and create knowledge in a social manner (Heafner & Friedman, 2008). Simply put, when Web 2.0 tools are effectively integrated into the classroom, student-centered pedagogy becomes the norm. Thus, Web 2.0 applications, specifically the creation of a digital flexbook using wiki technology, promotes collaboration and higher order thinking skills as preservice teachers construct knowledge for themselves, shifting the focus away from teacher-centered pedagogy.

Additionally, the collaborative nature of Web 2.0 forces preservice teachers to take into account multiple perspectives (Bull, Hammond, & Ferster, 2008). This type of pedagogy is reinforced by the National Council for the Social Studies (2006), which emphasized

engaging perspectives from various aspects of history while, helping students develop the habits of mind that historians and scholars in the humanities and social sciences employ to study the past and its relationship to the present in the US and other societies. (p. 1)

The focus on habits of mind helps students to develop the ability to pose pertinent questions and to support conclusions and abstract thought across the entire spectrum of social sciences (Lee & Friedman, 2009).

Finally, the democratization of contributors that is hoped for by Web 2.0 supporters comes with an urgent need for educational leaders to prepare preservice teachers to be able to examine critically the information they have access to (McLeod & Vasinda, 2008). To do this, educators must realize that moving students from consumers of information to editors of information is extremely important (Bull et al., 2008).

The use of Web 2.0 tools can be a powerful way to help preservice teachers develop a critical understanding of history and their teaching through the critique and creation of new knowledge. As a result, the creation of a digital flexbook could be an important step in actively engaging preservice teachers in the process of doing history while building the necessary skills for the development of TPCK.
Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge
On its own, technology does not produce intellectual engagement. Through the effective integration of a teacher's TPCK students can be purposefully guided through the "regimen of techniques for evidentiary inquiry and assisted in the development of new methodological schema for inter-textual and recursive historical study" (Swan & Hicks, 2007, p. 144). Building on Shulman's (1986) conception of pedagogical content knowledge, Mishra and Koehler (2006) defined TPCK as "an emergent form of knowledge that goes beyond all three components: content, pedagogy, and technology" to consider all three issues within a "state of dynamic equilibrium" (p. 1029). Cox (2008) went a bit further when she defined TPCK as the

knowledge of the dynamic, transactional negotiation among technology, pedagogy, and content and how that negotiation impacts student learning in a classroom context. The essential features are (a) the use of appropriate technology (b) in a particular content area (c) as part of a pedagogical strategy (d) within a given educational context (e) to develop students' knowledge of a particular topic or meet an educational objective or student need. (p. 40)

In short, preservice experiences should be infused with technology, pedagogy, and content in order to develop a nuanced understanding of the complex relationships between technology, content, and pedagogy for future social studies teaching (Mishra & Koehler, 2006). The process of using technology in meaningful ways through the design of a digital flexbook using wiki technology can provide a basis for building preservice teachers' TPCK.
Wiki Technology
A wiki is a Web 2.0 application that can be defined as a collaborative Web space where users can add and edit content to be published on the Internet. (Depending on the wiki hosting site, users could mean anyone registered, or invited or the public at large.) Heafner and Friedman's (2008) study on the use of wikis demonstrated a pedagogical shift from traditional teacher-centered instructional approaches to student-oriented, constructivist learning, which resulted in increased student self-efficacy and motivation (p. 288). The data from their study attests to the potential long-term benefits of using wikis for student learning (p. 289). In line with the literature on Web 2.0, the use of wikis in the classroom has the potential to allow students to develop their own understandings and, thus, become generators of knowledge and active contributors to the Internet. In other words, preservice teachers become guided travelers rather than passive learners (Demski, 2009).

In addition, the creation of a digital flexbook using wiki technologies "requires a thoughtful interweaving of all three key sources of knowledge: technology, pedagogy and content," building a basis for the development of TPCK in future teaching (Mishra & Koehler, 2006, p. 1029).

Although numerous wiki-hosting sites can be used to house this type of collaborative student-centered approach, the instructors for this course decided to use PBworks. PBworks became the logical choice because it is free to use, void of commercial advertising, is largely customizable, provides a complete history and audit trail for all work related to a user's particular site, and allows administrators to control the access of other users and third party readers[a]. The open source site also maintains a 2GB storage capacity and allows for up to 100 users. In addition, the easy-to-use WYSIWG interface allows for efficient image and video uploads, as well as the ability to embed Jing tutorials easily for students to refer to as they work.
Application in a Social Studies Methods Class
Programmatic Context. EDUC 415, Culture Society and Teaching, is a required course in our elementary education program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The course was designed to teach both foundations and elementary social studies methods. Given that foundations and social studies methods are paired in this course, our presentation of methods is through a social justice lens. The course is taught in a school two mornings a week. Each morning, the students spend approximately 2 hours working in an elementary classroom and 2 hours in class.

Assignment Goals. The development of a class digital flexbook was born from three primary goals (see class wiki at http://unceduc415.pbworks.com/).

The initial goal of the digital flexbook project was to provide students with an opportunity to interact meaningfully with technology, content, and pedagogy (see Mishra & Koehler, 2006) in an integrated way. In other words, we wanted to construct a meaningful opportunity for students to develop and build their TPCK. This project was the perfect opportunity to accomplish this goal. Working in pairs, students would have to work within the social studies curriculum in order to critique a social studies textbook, identify a topic in North Carolina history, collect historical documents, and design a digital chapter using PBworks. The term chapter is used loosely here. The term chapter often elicits notions of linear, structured historical accounts. Each chapter in the class digital flexbook, however, can be navigated by the reader in a nonlinear fashion. The digital flexbook is composed of nine historical chapters based on topics chosen by the preservice educators.

Embedded in the digital flexbook project is the belief that a constructivist pedagogy can engage students in developing historical inquiry skills and "habits of mind" through "reconciling incomplete and conflicting accounts of the past with primary and secondary sources" (Stoddard, Hofer, & Buchanan, 2008, p. 145). This type of approach requires students to move beyond the basic facts of the textbook in order to understand the context of historical people and events.

As the students began to collect their materials, they were asked to think of ways in which wiki technology could provide space to enhance, challenge, and expand the curriculum. Using hypertext, uploading video (e.g., see "Railroads and Technology" chapter), creating avatars (e.g., see "Colonial Era" chapter), and embedding flash content are all ways in which PBworks allows for students to depart from traditional text-based historical accounts. Finally, each pair of preservice teachers produced two lesson plans to accompany the chapter to be used by the practicum teachers and students. The lessons were expected to incorporate both the content and the use of the digital flexbook with elementary school students. By weaving together the analysis and creation of social studies content, wiki technology, and the development of lesson plans, students were provided a meaningful opportunity to develop TPCK.

The second essential project goal was the embedding of the digital flexbook in local history. One of the best approaches to learning about and organizing the past is through the study of local history (Clarke & Lee, 2004). The privileging of local history is meant to foster preservice educators' thinking about the ways in which the local community is interrelated to state and national politics. Specifically, the centering of local history in this project allowed us as professors to demonstrate ways in which preservice teachers could connect the social studies curriculum to their future students' lives, therefore, fostering engagement and critical thinking skills (McIntyre, Rosebery, & Gonzalez, 2001). Finally, the study of local history enables preservice teachers to contextualize their historical thinking within the histories and lived realities of the communities in which they will be employed.

Finally, we wanted to expose students to ways in which many written accounts of history exclude or marginalize certain groups of people. Students were asked to critique the writing of history for the ways in which the implicit cultural assumptions, frames of reference, perspectives, and biases influence the construction of social studies knowledge within a textbook account (Banks, 1993). The textbook provides fertile ground for critiquing and challenging the past, because it is beholden to economies of scale and most often ends up expressing the official knowledge of the dominant group (Apple, 1999).

By grounding the digital flexbook in the economies of the social studies textbook, we were asking students to reconcile historical accounts through an examination of the subtle ways in which the textbook industry privileges certain voices to the exclusion of others. Therefore, the topics that our students chose reflect much more than a historical problem but rather represent an attempt to explore, challenge, and interpret historical narratives in more inclusive and expansive ways. A great example of this type of work can be seen in the digital flexbook chapter entitled " The Wilmington Railroad."

Overview of the Process

Students worked in pairs over the course of one semester to develop nine social studies infused modules. The nine modules were designed to be nonlinear and navigated at the readers' choosing. The students were challenged to include oral histories, primary sources, media texts, and other primary and secondary accounts of a historical era and events to provide a more inclusive, personal, and critical lens for studying the social studies in North Carolina. Students were also encouraged to use hypertext to expand their historical accounts by linking to multimedia sites, academic journals, games, and other forms of digital content. Through the use of hypertext, students potentially are better able to represent the messiness of history (Ayers, 1999).

Benchmarks were given throughout the semester to break the project into manageable parts and to provide feedback in terms of the direction and content of the modules. To help students critique a social studies textbook and to organize historical materials into chapters, instructors introduced the acronym SPRITE. The SPRITE acronym can be a tool for document analysis, essay writing, and in this case, content organization. The SPRITE framework is also a useful tool for helping students to better understand the nature of historical work and the interconnected nature of the social studies. Students were, therefore, asked to address four of these historical factors to ensure a more complex and interconnected account. The use of the SPRITE framework to construct a historical account can be most clearly seen in the flexbook chapter entitled, " Native Americans in North Carolina."

The core components of the flexbook chapters consist of (a) an overarching question based on 9 to 11 primary and secondary sources, (b) a rationale for why the topic was important and how it added to or challenged the textbook account, (c) an index of materials located within the chapter, (d) a comprehensive account of the historical topic to be analyzed using the SPRITE framework, and (e) a teacher and student resource page. Topics developed include the Wilmington Rail Road, Children of the American Revolution, the Civil Rights Era, North Carolina's Involvement in the Civil War, the Colonial Era, Anti-War Protests, Family Life During World War II, Native Americans in Eastern North Carolina, and the Jazz Age in North Carolina.

Finally, students were required to keep a semester-long virtual journal using Voicethread. Voicethread is a free Web 2.0 application for teachers and can be used for virtual journals, digital storytelling, oral history, and language acquisition among other pedagogical activities. Students were expected to post historical documents, artifacts, questions, and other materials that directly related to their experience working with Web 2.0 technologies, analyzed the social studies curriculum for a social justice perspective, and developed curriculum for their chapter. Instructors left comments, answered technical questions, and provided feedback using the comment function of voicethread.com. As a result, the teachers and students were engaged in a semester-long dynamic discussion about the digital flexbook project.

Five Phases of Development

As the project developed, it became apparent that the creation of the class digital flexbook operated along five distinct phases: awareness, analysis, collection, design, and reflection. Each of these phases was unique to the process but did not occur in isolation. At times students gained awareness even as they were putting the final touches on their chapters. Often, the collection of primary and secondary sources led to new discussions and connections that needed further analysis. However, these five phases provide a lens to situate the development of the digital flexbook project from its inception through its development.

Awareness. The initial stage of the project can be defined as the awareness stage. This stage was crucial to providing a basis for further critique and examination of materials later in the semester. The awareness phase was predicated on the belief that "to understand their future students, prospective teachers must first examine their own socio-cultural identities" (Villegas & Lucas, 2002, p. 22). Students were led through readings, class discussions, and activities such as a mock trial of Christopher Columbus that began to open up dialog on the ways in which race, gender, language, and social class play into the writing of history and the socially constructed nature of teaching and learning. As Villegas and Lucas (2002) argued, "Without this insight, teachers are unable to cross the socio-cultural boundaries that separate too many of them from their students" (p. 22).

Analysis. The analysis phase was a four-part process in which students were asked to interview a current elementary school student, critique a Harcourt Horizons fourth-grade social studies textbook using a multicultural lens, analyze the materials found in the media resource library of the practicum school, and examine the school website for additional materials. We chose to use the fourth-grade textbook because it is centered on North Carolina history, provides a universal curriculum that can be modified for K-5, and would provide a unifying theme to the digital flexbook. Students who were not teaching fourth grade were expected to used the fourth-grade social studies textbook as starting place for their topic and then modify their flexbook chapter based on the practicum classroom they were working in over the course of the semester.

By interviewing a current elementary school student the preservice teachers were explicitly guided to understand the ways in which K-5 students might understand the nature of history and connect with their local community (see "History Through a Child's Eye").

For the textbook critique, students were given an evaluation rubric that scored the textbook on a 20-point scale using prompts such as the following:

Are a myriad of cultures being represented?

Do images represent individuals from multiple cultural backgrounds?

Do images represent individuals from both genders in equal roles of power and authority?

Does the scholarship encourage cultural appreciation?

Does the content address the North Carolina State Standards?

Does the textbook provide contextualized, authentic, and real world" examples of various groups?

After reviewing a textbook account of their historical topic, students were asked to catalog and critique resources found within the school media resource library. In cataloging the media center resources, students were asked to determine the types of materials that were available and ways in which the materials either reinforced the textbook account of their topic or provided an alternative narrative. Last, students had class time to search the school website and associated hyperlinks for additional materials on the topic. We particularly wanted students to examine how easy the sites were to access, for whom the sites were designed, and how the historical materials found could either reinforce or omit certain voices. After each of the above critiques, students used class time to reflect on findings, relate findings to class readings, and ask questions. The preservice teachers were also expected to reflect in a more individual setting using Voicethread.

Collection. The core component of the digital flexbook was the content students selected for their wiki space. After choosing a historical topic, critiquing the textbook, evaluating the media resource center, and examining school webpages, preservice teachers gathered 9 to 11 primary and secondary sources to facilitate the construction of an historical account (see "Education Continued"). In particular, students sought to include a variety of primary and secondary sources such as oral histories, media texts (e.g., see "The Jazz Age"), political texts (e.g., see "Employment"), and images (e.g., see "Protesting in the 21st Century").

We quickly realized that this stage of the process was going to be challenging. Most of our students had not engaged with primary sources before this class. The vast majority of our students were unsure of how to begin collecting primary and secondary sources. Almost none of the preservice teachers had ever entered the University archives or navigated the Carolina Digital Library and Archives prior to this project. Both are excellent resources for historical materials, but we quickly realized that the students were generally unprepared to collect documents to begin developing their digital flexbook chapter.

Taking a step back, we held a "museum" day in which tables were set up for students to engage with historical materials. The instructors used materials borrowed from the university archives and libraries to represent different time periods and types of historical sources. Students were given 15 minutes at each table to read, touch, and interpret the materials. We chose this particular activity to encourage the preservice teachers in thinking about the types of materials they might want to include in their flexbook chapter. In particular, we wanted students to understand the nature of historical sources and the ways in which those sources can dictate the story a historian can and will tell.

Design. The design phase of the flexbook project was the least challenging in many ways. Many of our students, if not all, can be considered digital natives (Prensky, 2001), and thus, the process of navigating the wiki site, embedding media, and finding new web 2.0 applications to include was not as difficult as collecting primary and secondary sources. Many of the students incorporated technologies that we had not required or had not heard of, such as the use of a Voki to make their content more interactive. Other groups embedded Prezi presentations (e.g., see "John Coltrane ") to make their content more dynamic and offer students more nonlinear opportunities to navigate the material.

The hardest part of this phase for students was determining the way in which the technology of the wiki could be used to best represent the historical materials and, thus, the account they were constructing. This was the point in which their content knowledge, pedagogical beliefs, and technological skills merged. They had to make choices for the first time in their teaching careers about content, pedagogy, and the use of technology.

Reflection. As part of this project and in keeping with the literature on multicultural classrooms, students were required to maintain a virtual journal using Voicethread for the entire semester. Using artifacts for their digital flexbook chapter, personal reflections, experience in their practicum that highlighted a point in our class, or a historical document they came across, the virtual journals became a semester-long dialog between the instructors and the students on the nature of history, the complex nature of writing textbooks, and their shifting and evolving position. Students were also asked to write a reflection at the end of the semester on BlackBoard that outlined their experience in developing the class digital flexbook.
Challenges
Although the implications for learning were immense and important, we faced numerous challenges in developing a digital flexbook. The most interesting aspect of this project was the frustration that grew out the student's lack of content knowledge. Discovering primary and secondary sources, challenging the textbooks, and creating new knowledge were limited by the preservice teachers' lack of historical information and content knowledge. This situation was compounded by the fact that much of what they knew was wrong or inaccurate.

As this experience was their first at developing a digital flexbook, and because the activity was truly situated within a constructivist framework, we had limited knowledge of what the students should and would create. Much of what they created went beyond our expectations. However, through the course of the semester the socially constructed nature of being a student led some to worry constantly about their grades rather than explore the process of doing history.

Finally, the greatest threat we face in implementing this type of project in the future is the marginalization of the social studies in elementary grades. When presented with the completed digital flexbook, many teachers were appreciative but unsure of when or how they could integrate a social studies model into their class time due to the focus on standardized tests in the local systems and, in some cases, a move to scripted curriculum.
Conclusion
The digital flexbook project was centered on and around inquiry-based activities that help students understand historical processes and engage their own histories into a broader understanding. Based on student feedback, we found that the digital flexbook assignment was an important and valued component to the development of preservice teachers' TPCK. We are currently in beginning stages of planning our course for next semester and plan to continue this project. However, we would like to expand the activity to consider the ways in which the elementary students can become active partners in the doing of local history, much like the work that has been done on the Digital Durham project conducted through Duke University (Abel, 2009). It would be extremely valuable for our preservice teachers to work with elementary students in creating new knowledge and gain a better understanding of the ways in which elementary students understand and perceive the social studies.

Despite the success of the project, we still have many questions that might frame future research projects. We intend to study our students' integration of the digital flexbook project into their own teaching. As we develop our research, we are interested in studying the ways in which digital flexbooks are being implemented into the social studies and the impact they have on student learning. In particular, we wonder if there is a difference in student learning with digital flexbooks over traditional paper-based textbooks. We also question what impact the digital flexbook project may have on the preservice teachers' TPCK.

Through the five phases outlined in this paper, the students completed the course with a better understanding of the types of pedagogical praxis that are frequently privileged in the classroom, developed a more critical stance on the intersection of race, gender, and socio-economic status on the writing of history, and integrated a model for how technology can and should be used in the classroom.

Notes

[a] Premium workspaces for PBworks start at $99/year. The premium account expands storage to 40GB and unlocks all security features for administrators to use. The free educator account contained enough memory and security features for all of my classroom needs.

Author's Note: The flexbook chapters are actual student products and thus, vary in degree of quality. However, each chapter represents the attempt to integrate technology, content knowledge and pedagogy through the creation of a digital flexbook centered around North Carolina history. In addition, the navigation bar to the right of the pbworks wiki page will move the reader through the various flexbook chapters.

References

Abel, T. (2009). The digital durham project: creating community through history, technology, and service learning. Perspectives on History, May. Retrieved from http://www.historians.org/perspectives/issues/2009/0905/0905for12.cfm

Apple, M. W. (1999). Power, meaning, and identity: Essays in critical educational studies. New York, NY: P. Lang.

Ayers, E. (1999). History in hypertext. Retrieved from http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/vcdh/Ayers.OAH.html

Banks, J. A. (1993). Multicultural education: Development, dimensions, and challenges. Phi Delta Kappan, 75(1), 22-28.

Bates, A. (2008). Learning to design webQuests: An exploration in preservice social studies education. Journal of Social Studies Research, 32(1), 10-21.

Bolick, C., Berson, M., Coutts, C., & Heinecke, W. (2003). Technology applications in social studies teacher education: A survey of social studies methods faculty. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 3(3), 300-309. Retrieved from http://www.citejournal.org/vol3/iss3/socialstudies/article1.cfm

Bull, G., Hammond, T., & Ferster, B. (2008). Developing Web 2.0 tools for support of historical inquiry in social studies. Computers in the Schools, 25(3/4), 275-287.

Cantu, D. A. (2000). Technology integration in preservice history teacher education. Journal of the Association for History and Computing, 3(2), 1-19.

Clarke, W. G., & Lee, J. K. (2004). The promise of digital history in the teaching of local history. Clearing House, 78(2), 84.

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Author Information

Lee Adcock
UNC Chapel Hill
email: leeadc@email.unc.edu

Cheryl Bolick
UNC Chapel Hill
email: cbolick@unc.edu

Resources

Carolina Digital Library and Archives - http://cdla.unc.edu

CK-12 FlexBooks (CK-12 Foundation site) - http://www.ck12.org/flexr/

Digital Durham - http://www.digitaldurham.duke.edu/

EDUC 415's Digital Flexbook - http://unceduc415.pbworks.com/

Harcourt Horizons - http://www.harcourtschool.com/menus/harcourt_horizons/topmenu/index.html

Jing - http://www.techsmith.com/jing/

Learn NC: North Carolina History: A Digital Textbook - http://www.learnnc.org/lp/projects/history/

North Carolina Maps - http://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/ncmaps&CISOPTR=2074&CISOBOX=1&REC=15

Prezi - http://prezi.com/

21st Century Physics Flexbook: A Compilation of Contemporary and Emerging Technologies - http://www.ck12.org/flexr/flexbook/735/

Pbworks - http://www.pbworks.com/

Twitter - http://twitter.com/

Voicethread - voicethread.com

Voki - http://www.voki.com/

YouYube - http://www.youtube.com/

Sample Chapters

Anti-War Protests - http://unceduc415.pbworks.com/1)-Introduction

Children of the American Revolution - http://unceduc415.pbworks.com/d)-American-Revolution-Overview

Civil Rights Era - http://unceduc415.pbworks.com/C)-Introduction

Colonial Era - http://unceduc415.pbworks.com/1-Intro-to-Colonial-Era

Education Continued - http://unceduc415.pbworks.com/w/page/25001543/G)-Education-Continued

Employment - http://unceduc415.pbworks.com/w/page/24770053/N%29-Employment

Family Life During World War II - http://unceduc415.pbworks.com/A-Introduction-Family+Life+in+WWII

History Through a Child's Eye - http://karenkuntaricheduc415.pbworks.com/w/page/20267341/History-Through-a-Child's-Eye

Jazz Age in North Carolina - http://unceduc415.pbworks.com/0-Introduction

John Coltrane - http://unceduc415.pbworks.com/w/page/24747751/4-John-Coltrane

Native American's in North Carolina - http://unceduc415.pbworks.com/E:-Introduction

North Carolina's Involvement in the Civil War - http://unceduc415.pbworks.com/a-Cover

Protesting in the 21st Century - http://unceduc415.pbworks.com/w/page/24840984/11)-Protesting-in-the-21st-Century

Railroads and Technology - http://unceduc415.pbworks.com/w/page/25051916/L:-Railroads-and-Technology

Wilmington Rail Road - http://unceduc415.pbworks.com/w/page/24261917/E:-WIKI-Introduction

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Web 2.0 Tools and the Evolving Pedagogy of Teacher Education

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Teacher educators are in a constant state of revisiting and revising their teacher education programs. Historically, research, educational policy, and accreditation requirements have been the impetus for renewal in teacher education. For the past 20 years, technology innovation has played an increasingly significant role in rethinking teacher education.

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What is Web 2.0?

The term first came into use in 1999 and simply describes websites that use technology above and beyond the static web pages used by earlier sites. This often allows users to be more interactive and collaborate with each other and with the page itself, such as in social media, for example, rather than simply viewing static content.

10 Top Web 2.0 Tools for Teachers

This invaluable resource gives a new lease of life to student surveys and polls. Quick and simple to use, it works across multiple platforms, with respondents able to submit answers via mobile phone, Twitter or web browser.

Brilliantly easy to use, Animoto produces high-quality videos from pictures and text, set against chosen backgrounds and music. A great way for students to get creative and produce something they can be proud of, Animoto has a wide variety of classroom uses, from projects to reports.

A great site for introducing students to literature or encouraging reluctant readers, LibriVox contains a wide catalogue of free audio books. To help students improve confidence and presentation skills, encourage them to submit their own content too!

Boasting a host of brilliant ways for students to connect with teachers, peers and world experts, Twitter is a top tool for research and communication in and out of the classroom. Check out our list of 5 great ways students can use Twitter for research!

Simple, foolproof, easy to use... Dropbox is the best way to share files and documents with your students from any computer, anywhere!

These two sites go side-by-side because there's so little to choose between them! Both provide brilliant creative platforms for classroom blogs, either for students learning to express themselves and create online content or for teachers keeping students updated on important information and projects.

An invaluable tool for the busy EdTech teacher, Diigo is like an electronic, all-purpose digital Filofax! Use it to store links, resources, websites, blogs and more. It boasts handy sticky notes for reminders, highlighters for personalizing documents, and the ability to store documents and images too. An all-round winner of a tool!

One of the most striking manifestations of online technology is the rise in digital whiteboards. This one hosts a bunch of fantastic features, allowing teachers to share and discuss ideas in multimedia format with students both in the classroom and virtually.

A must-have tool for teaching presentations, this is one web 2.0 resource that really has changed the face of the classroom. Including photographs, diagrams, flowcharts and being able to zoom in and out makes presentations far more engaging and visual than ever before.

Any we've missed? I'm sure there are! What are your favourite Web 2.0 tools for teachers? Let us know in the comments box below!

Images courtesy of Flickr, Neal. & Ed Yourdon

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10 of the Best Web 2.0 Tools for Teachers

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The term first came into use in 1999 and simply describes websites that use technology above and beyond the static web pages used by earlier sites. This often allows users to be more interactive and collaborate with each other and with the page itself, such as in social media, for example, rather than simply viewing static content.

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Web 2.0 sites are built for interactivity and collaboration-two features essential to education. Web 2.0 sites are also ideal for teaching almost any subject, as a wide array of tools are available to create and manage learning materials. Students can actively and enthusiastically approach any subject, from creative writing to STEM explorations, on these sites. Moreover, Web 2.0 sites support robust teaching and learning-even when students and teachers are at home instead of the classroom.

In alphabetical order, the following list includes established, tried-and-true sites, as well as the latest cutting-edge Web 2.0 sites for education.

50 Web 2.0 Sites for Schools

1. ACMI Generator - From Australia's national museum of film, TV, video games, digital culture and art, this terrific free site lets students explore digital storytelling, video game building, the art of filmmaking, animation, and much more.

2. Anchor- An all-in-one platform that allows users to create and distribute their own podcasts easily. Great possibilities here for creative classroom assignments.

3. Animaker - A versatile site that allows teachers and students to create presentations, posters, animations, and infographics. Offers free account for up to two teachers and 25 students as well as affordable premium accounts.

4. Animoto - Create impressive-looking slideshows that include video, images, music, and more. Free accounts allow users to create unlimited videos.

5. Baamboozle - An easy-to-use site that allows teachers to create learning games with text, images animation, and more-or browse the thousands of existing games to find one that fits. Can be shared and played remotely.

6. Boom Writer - An engaging creative writing website on which students can write original stories, individually or within a group. Integrates with all curriculum and offers real-time chat between teacher and student.

7. Chart It - Free, simple yet elegant site lets users create and save charts and graphs online, and explore graphs made by others.

8. Citizen DJ (beta) - A free beta site from the Library of Congress that provides opportunities for users to create music from wide-ranging audio and video resources. Explore and remix sounds right in the browser.

9. Cloud Stop Motion - This stylish stop-motion animation site offers free school account with unlimited student users. Make movies with soundtracks on any desktop, smartphone, tablet, or Chromebook.

10. Creatability - Features a series of experiments exploring how to make creative tech tools more accessible. Free to browse and try. Encourage your students to build their own!

11. Diigo- This social bookmarking site offers free teacher and student accounts. Users can save, tag, annotate, organize, and share online resources.

12. Diagrams.net - Completely free online software to create mind-maps, flow charts, network diagrams, and more. Drag and drop pre-existing shapes, arrows, tables, and symbols, or draw each one yourself on the canvas. With no cost, no account needed, and sharing capability, it's a great tool to use in any classroom.

13. Edmodo - A free communication/collaboration platform with LMS capabilities, Edmodo can be used in person, online, or with hybrid learning. Teachers can create classes and then share assignments and quizzes.

14. Edublog - Designed to make it easy for teachers and students to create and maintain their own websites, Edublog is also a great platform for collaboration. Free and modestly priced pro accounts are available.

15. Educandy - A free and easy-to-use site in which teachers make learning fun by creating "flavours" of activities: words, pairs, and quizzes. No student account required.

16. Educaplay - An excellent free way to gamify learning with interactive multimedia educational activities. Premium accounts also available, offering additional features and removing advertisements.

17. Flipgrid- A fully free and simple-to-use video discussion site. Educators choose a topic and students respond to the challenge creatively by recording and uploading video. Includes a library of more than 25,000 topics to browse.

18. Floop - A web app dedicated to helping teachers provide faster and more meaningful feedback to students. Students submit assignments online, where instructors can quickly and efficiently add commentary that guides students to improve their work.

19. Glogster - Kids combine images, colors, text, audio, and more to create collaborative, interactive posters in this safe environment. Multiple affordable pricing options available.

20. Goosechase- A K-12 focused version of a hybrid scavenger hunt. Teachers create their own games, or use one posted by others. Math, vocabulary, and geology are just a few of the many possible subjects of these engaging hunts.

21. G Suite for Education - A comprehensive set of free education tools, including for communication, collaboration, organization, classroom management, and data security. Free and enterprise accounts available.

22. Gnowledge - A free platform to create collaborative online quizzes, share resources, view others' quizzes, and more. Excellent tech support and tutorial videos as well.

23. Infogram - A site that allows users to create charts, maps, and infographics. Free basic account includes a nice variety of professional templates, up to 10 projects, object animations and more.

24. Little Bird Tales - A wonderful site for digital storytelling that allows kids to upload artwork, then record and narrate a story. Affordable rates for teachers and schools.

25. Live Binders - An virtual binder site that allows teachers to create their own classroom textbooks, digital portfolios, and more. Students can use Live Binders to showcase their academic work, while administrators can create online guides for teachers and staff, and make easy updates.

26. Musicshake - Legal, copyright, free music for every student in your school - created by students, right from a browser. Students mix and match genres, instruments, and tempo and the software does the rest. No musical talent required!

27. Parlay - An innovative tool for class discussion, Parlay offers a library of discussion prompts, blended learning, and live online discussions. Teachers start with a discussion prompt, then students review learning resources and respond with their own ideas.

28. Pixton - This engaging comic creator will motivate students to dream up their own digital stories. For K-12 and secondary education.

29. Playmeo- Hundreds of fun interactive games for groups, with a library of core activities for math, science, health, and language arts. Searchable by theme, exertion level, duration, or group size.

30. Playposit - Interactive video instruction site that engages kids in self-paced learning, and allows teachers to track their progress.

31. PresentationTube - Create, upload, and share video tutorials using PowerPoint and the website's free software. An affordable premium version is available. Browse uploaded videos to get ideas for your own.

32. Prezi - Prezi allows users to create slideshows and presentations, and works with multiple popular apps such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and YouTube. Free basic plans, plus very affordable paid options for educators.

33. SchoolTube - Free K-12 video hosting site is COPPA and ADA compliant. Features include unlimited videos, personalized channels, playlists video apps, analytics, single sign on, and more.

34. SpellingCity - A user-friendly and engaging site for teaching and learning spelling and vocabulary. Extensive teaching resources include word lists, lessons, standards- and grade-based vocabulary lists for literature titles, and STEM vocabulary lists.

35. Stop Motion Studio - Students can use images, artwork, or virtually any prop to create stop-motion movies to illustrate what they've learned-or what they want to teach others. Enables direct export to YouTube.

36. Storillo- Helps students learn how to collaborate on projects and practice critical executive functioning skills. Teachers can easily monitor progress of group members-and see who does what.

37. Storybird - A site that inspires students to read and write through the use of digital visual storytelling, from poetry to longform writing to flash fiction and comics. Education plans available.

38. StoryJumper - A free site for digital storytelling in which students can incorporate their own art, publish online, share with others, or order a print copy of their own work. Integrates with Google Classroom and offers many examples to browse.

39. SymbalooEDU - Lets teachers and students save, organize, and share links to websites, videos, web documents, and other learning resources. Free and pro accounts available.

40. Thinglink - Imaginative site for combining images, video, 360° images, and 360° videos to create interactive visual presentations, learning materials, or student projects. Available as a mobile app also.

41. Toonclip - Lets users create animations with simple English language text and drag-and-drop images. Free account allows 20 animations per month.

42. Triptico - A great free tool for teachers to create, share, and edit interactive lessons. Engaging features include word magnets, drag-and-drop templates, and gamified activities.

43. VoiceThread - Ed.VoiceThread is a safe and secure platform to help students develop critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity skills via multimedia presentations. Ongoing training workshops include advanced skills and integration with Moodle, Blackboard, and other learning management systems.

44. Weebly - Offers a drag-and-drop website editor to create a free class website with multimedia capability and expanded blogging features. Bonus-free accounts do not include advertising!

45. Whiteboard.f i - Awesome free online whiteboard tool offers instant access without registration. Create and name a class online, share the URL with students, and start annotating your whiteboard.

46. WordCloud Generator by MonkeyLearn - A clever site that is very simple to use--just paste or upload your text and the AI generates a word cloud showing the most frequently used words. Great free tool for exploring and analyzing literature, advertising, and more.

47. Wolfram Alpha - An educational portal for Wolfram's computational search engine. Students and teachers can explore topics from step-by-step solutions for calculus problems to comparing the Flintstones versus the Simpsons.

48. Yacapaca - This all-in-one solution for creating quizzes, surveys, and assessments offers free introductory access to browse subjects, syllabuses, quizzes, and more. Resources are rated for popularity and quality, and may be individually reviewed as well.

49. Yo Teach!- A free-to-use backchannel/chatroom with drawing and annotating functionality. Considered by many a replacement for the well-liked and defunct TodaysMeet, Yo Teach includes functions such as Raising Hands, Simple Polling, Mute Students, Participation Stats, and Transcript Download.

50. Zoho Wiki - Educators can create virtual classrooms for interactive content or online instruction, manage assignments, monitor student progress, and more.

David Kapuler is an educational consultant with more than 10 years of experience working in the K-12 environment. For more information about his work, contact him at dkapuler@gmail.com and read his blog at cyber-kap.blogspot.com.

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Web 2.0 sites are built for interactivity and collaboration-two features essential to education. Web 2.0 sites are also ideal for teaching almost any subject, as a wide array of tools are available to

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Online tools and resources have made it easier for teachers to instruct students, and for students to collaborate with those teachers and with other