Ideas to Inspire

If we believe that all students should have their own laptops, then as teachers, we should want to become immigrants to the new digital world by teaching students to go beyond the idea that the computer is just a glorified typewriter or graphing calculator. I’d like to use this column to bring some ideas of web 2.0 tools for educators that will push literacy into the 21st century. If you’re interested in any of these tools, let me know and I’ll help you fit it into your curriculum as well as offer you literacy and technology support.

In order for me to talk about it, the site has to be:

* accessible to non-tech savvy users.

* free-of-charge.

* appropriate for classroom use.

* completely browser-based with no download required.

Book goo took me less than one minute to register and about a minute watch the infovideo.

Book goo is a new tool that lets you or students upload documents or webpages and then annotate and share them. Others can also then annotate the same document. You can draw on the documents as well. Students can upload their drafts, make notes, or draw on the parts that they need help on, and get feedback from their writing group members and you online either at home or in school. It eliminates the sometimes distracting noise from other groups who are all trying to do writing group together as a read aloud.

Students could also download web site information and write the notes to demonstrate reading strategies on webpages. I haven’t found glitches in my playing with this program, but if you do find glitches, the support staff at bookgoo is very friendly and willing to help.

This is a screen shot of my initial “playing” and I indicated where I needed help. The note decreases until you click on it and then reveals the note. I also was able to  send it to other people to get their feedback. Once they  help me with my feedback, then it all shows up in the folder labeled “my goo” with the icon of the other people that I got feedback from as well as their notes and annotations.