Ways of Working: How students can leverage Web 2.0 tools to their own advantage

In the presentation, Ways of Working: How students can leverage Web 2.0 tools to their own advantage, Chris Betcher described numerous ideas for utilizing Web 2.0 tools to enhance the learning value of real world events such as the Sculpture by the Sea held in Sydney, Australia. He provided research strategies to implement prior to attending the event to make the experience at the event more meaningful for his students. Through the use of Netvipes, he showed how students could build their own newspaper by pulling in RRS feeds from twitter, flickr, blog and news searches pertaining to the upcoming event. At the event, he recommended that students use their phones to collect media (images and video) and voice recordings for creating presentations. He suggested collecting geolocated pictures: RunKeeper can track your progress as you walk and take pictures documenting where your are when you take a picture. After the event students are encouraged to create presentations and tell stories about their experiences using tools such as Voicethread, Animoto, Comiclife, and photostitching. Skype was utilized for videoconferencing to gain further insights after the event. It was also interesting to learn about how students extend their learning by creating scuptures in virtual worlds online. I enjoyed viewing this presentation, particularly since my son is currently studying abroad in Australia. As they showed videoclips of Sculptures by the Sea, I imagined him touring there.