YouTube – Probably one of the most well known Web 2.0 sites. There is a lot of inappropriate content, as there is anywhere, but don’t be put off – there is a vast amount of fantastic content as well. If you are an RE teacher, then from my skattp profile, you can find links to a group for RE teachers and to some other accounts that I find helpful. I am sure there are similar groups for other subjects.

TrueTube – There some excellent (British based) videos on here that would make great debate starters. TrueTube hopes that young people will make more equally provoking videos and share them on the site. I have written about TrueTube before, here.

Teachers’ TV – An excellent resource for CPD; the site also contains videos that can be used in class. There are also groups and forums that you can take part in.

TeacherTube – Videos by and for teachers.

Animoto – Upload photos, choose from a selection of Creative Commons music, and Animoto will produce an audiovisual presentation for you.

Xtranormal – If you can type, you can make movies. An easy way for a teacher to make a starter video, or for a student to produce an ICT-based piece of homework.

VoiceThread – You could add this as a way to introduce a topic, by uploading a picture or video, then recording a commentary while using pens to highlight key points. Or, you could upload students’ work, and other students can then comment on each others’ work, as a form of peer assessment.

GoAnimate – A fairly easy way to produce short animations. These can then be hosted on a video site, such as YouTube or TeacherTube.

Voki – This is an easy way for you, or a student, to animate a message without having to record your face as well as your voice. You normally need a blog to host it on.

Audacity – An excellent tool that can be downloaded for free. Easy to use to record and to transform voices as well. The voice can then be added to vokis or other videos.

There are some good primary examples on this Demo Primary School site, based in Falkirk. Thanks to @mvass for producing it, and to @johnmclear for drawing it to my attention!

I will add more later, as I receive more suggestions!

Thanks to Rod Lucier, also known as the Clever Sheep, for this presentation. As well as the obviously useful information about collaboration, and the examples of site and applications that can support working together in education, I think this is about the first time I’ve sat and watched a slideshare presentation while listening to the voiceover. As I have an ICT in RE presentation to prepare, I think I ought to have a go at doing that as well, if I have time!!

I also thought I’d add a link to the Web 2.0 Tools site mentioned by Rod in his presentation.

1. Google – I would 100% agree. I don’t think I really used search engines before Google came along.

2. Wikipedia – This is now so useful that it is often my first port of call, nevermind my pupils’.

3. Twitter – I believe this is the best source of CPD that I’ve had over this past year. Although it’s probably stopped me blogging so much!

4. Comment is Free – A particularly Guardian inclusion which I’m not sure I’ve ever used.

5. BBC iPlayer – I don’t use it that often, but when I do, it’s great – and its existence would encourage me to get rid of the TV at some point in the future.

6. iPhone – I don’t have one, but I know many people who do, and it did start that whole era of touchscreen phones. I’ve just got a BlackBerry, and I can see that being a big change. In fact, I’m typing this post on it now.

7. Craigslist – Never used it.

8. Facebook – Of course I’m on it! But I don’t use it so much these days. However, I still use it to keep in touch with old friends.

9. iTunes U – Need to look into this one.

10. Spotify – I think I’ve signed up to this but I’m not so much into listening to music. Don’t get me wrong – I like music, I’ve grown up playing the violin and I love to dance. But my husband is the DJ round here so I pretty much let him get on with it! A pretty eclectic mix anyway!

So, that was the Guardian’s top ten. What about mine? Of course, there’s bound to be an overlap!

1. Twitter – I’ve ‘met’ so many members of the education technology world through this, and they have shared so much in terms of resources and ideas. I can’t imagine trying to find out so much on my own. Definitely best CPD this year.

2. YouTube – Couldn’t believe it when I read that YouTube was founded AFTER the Indonesian tsunami. That is an event that I remember clearly because my husband and I were on an amazing Italian winter holiday. Surely YouTube must have existed before that holiday?! But it didn’t.

3. Google – The homepage on many computers I’ve worked on! Also the standard search button at school. I use Google at school and at home to find quick images and basic facts.

4. Wikipedia – First source of information. Normally the first item that pops up on Google as well!

5. Flickr – I love Flickr. Almost all my photos are up there. One of the few Web 2.0 apps that I pay for – I’ve had a Pro account for a couple of years. Still remember the first time I heard of Flickr – from a stranger who was taking pictures of the same smouldering warehouse as me – and now I’m shocked when other people haven’t heard of it. My favourite site to search for Creative Commons Flickr photos is www.compfight.com.

6. Facebook – I think I was one of the first of my friends and colleagues to be on Facebook (after much prompting from @victoriaellis!). The novelty has worn off – I don’t send people flowers any more! – but it’s still great for keeping in touch.

7. Blogs – To think I’d never heard of them three years ago. I enjoy writing them (when I have the time) and have learnt loads from reading them.

8. Online banking – I was probably one of the first to use phone banking, as I worked for Direct Banking when I was at uni, but it took until about 4 years ago to finally sign up for Online banking. And it’s so useful. I love being able to see my transactions, and being able to transfer my money when I want to without having to discuss it with anyone.

9. WiFi – I’m so glad the days of plugging in to dial up are long gone! And I can talk to someone on the phone and be online at the same time! Bliss.

10. BlackBerry – I’ve only had it a week, so I suppose it’s too early to say what sort of impact it will have on my life. But it’s already got me blogging again – this post has been typed on my BlackBerry – and I can send emails and texts on the tube and it sends them when it has a signal! Fantastic.

So, that’s my top ten. Now, what’s yours?

Note: You can also read @janeinjava’s post here.

First of all, I could make – or ask my students to make – a video … perhaps a conversation between two people with different points of view discussing one of the evaluation statements that crop up all the time in their exam papers? But, videos so often seem to take so much time … Well, fear not, because my good friend Victoria on Geogtastic has pointed me in the direction of Xtranormal. Their tagline – if you can type, you can make movies. And it’s true. Check it out. (Although I have had some difficulties recently making movies. Not sure if it’s them or me. Hope it fixes itself soon. It is in Beta, so maybe I ought to drop them a line.)

On the other hand, some of our students really like revision cards, and some enjoy trading cards. So how about they make their own trading revision cards? BigHugeLabs have such a trading card maker. And results can then be shared on Flickr, or elsewhere, or printed out to be used as revision cards.

Finally, for now, a new YouTube type site, where you can make your own school based site. The privacy levels on Fliggo can, I think, be made stronger than those on YouTube – for example, you can moderate comments before they are posted. You can visit my new STM RE Fliggo site here. I presume I can upload any relevant video here, not only my own? Would be a good place to store all the useful and relevant videos I find in such places as TrueTube and GodTube. I think. If that’s allowed. Any advice?

And now, over to you. What one piece of advice would you give a GCSE student that would help them with their revision? Thank you!

Talk in the papers of primary schools learning Twitter rather than history, or some such nonsense! Must read the reports properly … Anyway, there are many ways we can use Twitter in education, and there are many in this presentation. Thanks to tombarrett and others!

Twitterholic – According to their website, Twitterholic “robots scan the Twitter public timeline for new twits to tweet. A few times a day, we calculate individual statistics for each twittering twit in our database.” You can look up your own stats to see what your ranking is; however, it is also useful to see who the most popular Twitterers are (Barack Obama followed by Stephen Fry, as of Friday 13 February 2009). Jonathan Ross joined only 75 days ago, and he is already at number 12.

Mr Tweet is my next recommendation. When you follow him, he will suggest people that you might like to follow, including people who are particularly relevant to you, based on what you twitter about. I found loads of interesting technological educators … which brings me to my next site.

TwitterSheep is like Wordle for Twitter. If you enter your username, TwitterSheep will look at the bios of your followers and come up with a word cloud. You can see mine (well, my most recent one) on TwitPic here. Alternatively you can search among your own tweets to see what you tweet about. Mine was too big to take a screenshot …

TwitPic could do with some more explaining. Well, not much explaining. You can upload photos or send them from your mobile, and these will be added as a link to your twitter feed.

I’ve just uploaded TweetDeck to my computer. So it’s maybe not the best time to give any sort of opinion! But it gets good write ups elsewhere, and Phillip Schofield uses it. Along with loads of other people. You can see everyone’s tweets, but you can also make groups; I can therefore follow my personal friends, helpful educational twitterers, people who tweet about Malawi and celebrities, as well as getting my BBC updates etc.

Twitter_Tips is an interesting general twitterer to follow: this application (?) posts links to interesting general Twitter news.

I’ve mentioned Terry Freedman a number of times now on my blog. I often get links to interesting articles via him. I recently came across Alvin Trusty (via his excellent blog post on how to create a great powerpoint). Another twitterer worth following is Tom Barrett, particularly for links to such excellent presentations such us Nineteen (and counting) Interesting Ways to Use Twitter in the Classroom.

Hmmm. There are so many more. I am following just over 100 people, many of them top class “edtech” folk, who obviously live interesting lives and also provide me with links to fascinating posts and news about new technology in education. I had hoped to add some links to a few of the interesting recent news and posts about Twitter that I have read in the last couple of days, but it is Saturday the Fourteenth now, rather than Friday the Thirteenth, and I have to get some sleep! I hope there has been something of interest to you in this post. Which will be twittered on my Twitter feed at some point in the near future …

ADDED LATER:
50 ideas on using Twitter in education – thanks to Carol Cooper-Taylor, whose blog I found via Twitter_Tips.

A directory of Learning Professionals (and others) on Twitter – digital breadcrumbs meant I went from Carol’s blog to Jane Hart’s blog, to her Twitter page, to her other blog, to here! I also found Twitlet through her. Many thanks, Jane!

Some of you may wish to join and add to the Twitter for Teachers wiki.

I’ve just found Clif’s Notes … on Twitter in Education. There are plenty of links there that you could follow to find out more. Clif’s Notes linked to Tom Barrett’s post on using Twitter in the classroom, in a Maths lesson on probability. Nice one!

So here goes. I may include some links, although others are more private, some I am dormant in, and others I may have been thrown out of by now for never having used them! I am sure there will be some I have forgotten.

Facebook
Twitter
Ning
Dipity
Friends Reunited
LinkedUp
Plurk
Classroom 2.0
Haringey Transformation Teachers’ Programme
Diigo
Teaching and Learning with Web 2.0
Web 2.0 Tools for Teachers
Slideshare
Flickr

So that’s 14 so far. Sorry, post took much longer than planned: I ended up browsing around Friends Reunited! So that’s one of the main problems of Social Networking! I was supposed to be marking!

I have been experimenting with Twitpic – this has included sending a photo from my phone, a first for me – not great quality, but then again, some of Jonathan Ross‘ are obviously snaps rather than professional, and they are fun and interesting. Although I suspect his phone is of a somewhat higher quality than mine!

As soon as I got “the call” at 7am, just before I left the house, but was already warmly wrapped up (”the call” being, of course, snow day: school’s closed!”), I decided to head out anyway but with my camera rather than my rucksack. The sky was still a bit brown-grey, just beginning to clear, the air was crisp, and the snow was (still is, in most cases, at the moment) clean, crisp, fluffy, white, light and airy. I wandered around the local area, and took quite a few photos, before heading back to my back yard, making a couple of snow angels, and building a snow-face (the snow was a bit too soft and fluffy to impact together to make a full sized snow person!). I then decided that, since I was still awake, to upload my photos before going back to catch up with my sleep (now at 81% uploaded, been going since about 9am and it’s now 2pm …) and see what was happening in the world of Twitter.

A lot. Also, a lot of people were twittering using “#uksnow” (this made me discover that I’ve no hash sign on my computer, which is a bit weird); there are sites dedicated to looking at these “hashtags” and how they are used on Twitter. Exploring these links helped me find a number of interesting pages: Broadstuff reflects on how Twitter has helped people find out what the transport arrangements have been like around the UK; there’s a great map mashup showing how much snow is falling in different parts of the UK; I’ve started using TwitPic because so many others have been showing off their snow photos, and Channel4News were wanting people to upload pics (and to get their 3000 follower – it could be you!).

Anyway, it’s all been fun, and later I’ll see about posting some of my favourite Flicker snow pics here!