Create Web 2.0 Lessons for your Classroom

Are you teaching a group of students for whom technology seems an integral part of their lives? To reach today’s millennial kids, you need lessons that are interactive, immediately relevant, full of rich media and most importantly, engaging. It used to be that the only way to take advantage of the computers in your classroom was to install games or encourage students to search the Internet, but when you create Web 2.0 lessons, you can offer more truly interactive opportunities within your classroom.

If you’re wondering what resources you have when you create Web 2.0 lessons, the sky is the limit. Displaying images gives you the power to include diagrams, photos and animated slideshows. Use audio to narrate students’ way through a lesson, expound on graphics and photos, or provide original historical source material. With Flash movies, you can provide simulations and video footage.

There are many tools that help you create online content, and they range from the free to many thousands of dollars. One easy, free tool is the Content Authoring Tool (CAT), a very flexible and interactive way to create classroom presentations. By using templates, it makes it easy to incorporate images, audio, and Flash movies in a lesson. You can use CAT to create entire lessons, and students working on a group project can use CAT to create a class presentation on a topic they have researched. No programming knowledge is necessary, but those with knowledge of basic HTML will be able to customize lessons even further. Lessons can be delivered online, or exported for use on any computer.

Additionally, the following tools have broadened the resources available in the classroom and reduced the reliance on simple Internet search. For example, history and geography lessons would benefit from images available through the free Google Earth program, with which you can take students virtually to any location, such as the Grand Canyon or Eiffel Tower. For other subjects, sites such as Google Video and YouTube have coverage of recent and past news, political speeches, and social commentary, so these video sites can be great economics, history or current events tools. Most videos on these sites range from one to ten minutes long and can easily provide enrichment on a subject within a brief window of classroom time. Websites such as Flickr make it easy to upload images and include them in a slide show. Google Video and YouTube also allow you to share your own videos. Most of these sites attach searchable “tags” to content, making it simple for teachers to find material related to their subject.

Any of these elements can stand alone as an enrichment tool or can be included in a full-fledged multimedia lesson. Integrating text, audio, images and Flash movies into your lessons brings all the available Web 2.0 content into a cohesive presentation.

However you choose to do it, implementing Web 2.0 resources in your classroom via interactive multimedia lessons can be an easy and fun process, and adds richness and depth to students’ learning experiences. Creatively-inspired teachers interested in creating more engaging and interactive lessons can explore the resources available to them and produce a better learning experience for their students than ever before.