Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms [Paperback]

Will Richardson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2010 | ISBN-10: 1412977479 | ISBN-13: 978-1412977470 | Edition: Third Edition

For educators of all disciplines, this third edition of a bestseller provides K–12 examples of how Web tools such as blogs, wikis, Facebook, and Twitter allow students to learn more, create more, and communicate better.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This book is loaded with insightful and honest advice about the Web 2.0 in education. Will Richardson has amassed decades of technology integration experience as a teacher, consultant, blogger, and educational leader. There are few like him and few books like this.” (Curtis J. Bonk, Professor, Indiana University )

"Richardson's book was a touchstone for me when I started trying to figure out how to integrate participatory media into my teaching. I recommend this book to any teacher at any level who is interested in the learner-centric pedagogy that social media enables." (Howard Rheingold, Lecturer, Stanford University )

"The best guide you can find to using the power of the Internet in your classroom." (Jeff Jarvis, Author of What Would Google Do? )

About the Author

A parent of two middle-school-aged children, Will Richardson has been writing about the intersection of social online learning networks and education for the past 10 years at Weblogg-ed.com and in numerous journals and magazines such as Ed Leadership, Education Week, and English Journal. Recently, he shifted his blogging emphasis to willrichardson.com. Formerly a public school educator for 22 years, he is a co-founder of Powerful Learning Practice (plpnetwork.com), a unique professional development program that has mentored over 3,000 teachers worldwide in the last three years. His first book, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms (Corwin, 3rd Edition 2010) has sold over 80,000 copies and has impacted classroom practice around the world. His second book, Personal Learning Networks: Using the Power of Connections to Transform Education, was released in May, 2011. His articles have appeared in Educational Leadership, EdWeek, English Journal, Edutopia, and Principal Leadership, among others, and over the past six years, he has spoken to tens of thousands of educators in more than a dozen countries about the merits of learning networks for personal and professional growth. He is a national advisory board member of the George Lucas Education Foundation and a regular columnist for District Administration Magazine. Will lives in rural New Jersey with his wife, Wendy, and his children Tess and Tucker.

Product Details

• Paperback: 184 pages
• Publisher: Corwin Press; Third Edition edition (March 1, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1412977479
• ISBN-13: 978-1412977470
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 7 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #37,098 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #92 in Books > Computers & Technology > Home Computing > Internet

More About the Author

I consider myself an "evangelist" for the use of Weblogs, RSS and related Internet technologies in classrooms and schools. Over the past six years I've had the chance to speak and work with thousands of educators from around the world on the merits of "The Read/Write Web." I was a classroom teacher for over 20 years who integrated these technologies into my curricula for over four years. In various Weblog projects, my students have collaborated with best-selling authors, Pulitzer Prize winning journalists, and with students in classrooms from around the world. One of the first educator bloggers, my Weblog at www.weblogg-ed.com has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Times, Syllabus and others, and it is a primary resource for the creation and implementation of Weblog technologies on the K-12 level. My articles have appeared in Educational Leadership, English Journal and Principal Leadership, among others, and I have presented throughout the United States and in New Zealand, Australia, China, Norway, Canada and others on the shifts that are taking place in education because of these online social learning tools. I'm currently a national advisory board member for the George Lucas Education Foundation.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and so much more, November 23, 2010

By 

Amanda Myslinski - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms (Paperback)

If you are looking to add technology into your classroom, Will Richardson's book, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms, is a good place to start. The book takes the reader through a journey of possibilities to using web 2.0 tools in education. Each chapter was dedicated to a web 2.0 tool, from Weblogs to Social Networks (and many in-between)! Each chapter describes the web 2.0 tool and then gives examples of how others have used the tool in their classroom. On top of that Richardson also has examples you can actually go to on the Internet! I found that the real life examples reinforced the idea that teachers all over the world are incorporating technology into their classrooms. And it was nice to see how others were doing that.

I like how Richardson wrote the book for educators and he understands that not everyone is an expert at using technology. He constantly is mentioning that before jumping into using this in the classroom, you must first become involved yourself in the technology. Which is so true; you must first understand how to use technology and what this all means in the education world before expecting your students to. He provides guidelines and steps of how to incorporate web 2.0 tools into your classroom.

From this book I have built upon what I already know about web 2.0 tools and learned some new things. In fact while reading this book, a colleague of mine should be how to use Jing and Screencast to record and share a video from my computer. When I went home to read the next chapter of Will's book I learned even more about Jing and Screencast and how other teachers were using it. There was however one chapter that was completely new to me which was chapter five RSS. Like the other chapters in this book, Will starts off by explaining what RSS is and then gives suggestions of how to get involved with RSS. I have not had a chance to try setting up an RSS feed for myself, however it is something that I will be doing in the near future.

I do not consider myself an expert on technology, however I do feel comfortable using it, and believe one hundred percent that my students need to be taught how to use the technology we have available to their advantage. As Richardson points out in his book, we need to prepare our students for their future, they need to learn to read, write, and collaborate using the web. The web is a place that Richardson defines as a Read/Reflect/Write/Participate Web. Another point Richardson makes is that students are using these tools at home and they may not be using them properly. If taught in the classroom how to read, write, and collaborate with others properly, students are going to be successful in the future. Teachers do not need to become experts but they should have a general idea of the tools out there and how to use them in the classroom to benefit students.

This book is a great resource to build upon what you are already doing in the classroom or for teachers who are just starting to incorporate technology. I hope that you read this book and find at least one web 2.0 tool that you find so incredible that you want to try and then you will bring to your classroom and use with your students.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome Book!, June 8, 2011

By 

CWalker - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms (Paperback)

Reading this book you feel like your actually having a one-way conversation with someone who is teaching a lot of new and exciting stuff. Throughout the text the author is constantly giving tips and information to make the things he is telling you about easy to understand and even use. In chapter 6 the author talks about the advantages of using twitter and how it's possible to use twitter for troubleshooting as well as to hear about new and exciting ideas from other professionals. Diigo is also discussed and it is noted that because it allows you to bookmark websites and is a web application, you can use it from any computer anywhere because of your unique login. Delicious is a site that allows you to use specific tags that allow for your students to easily access and find the work. Chapter 7 is a discussion on Flickr and the possibilities that come with using it. Being able to annotate items within a picture allows individuals to see and discover what they are looking at. The idea of using tags with the pictures allows anyone, if the picture is public, to view the picture. Chapter 8 is about podcasting, video and screen casting, and live streaming and how these tools work and are used by many people. This chapter brings together all of the tools in this chapter from iTunes to UStream offer many opportunities to provide teachable videos as well as to have students create their own as well. This book has many valuable aspects for the world of educational technology and would be a great asset to any classroom teacher.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good Read!, June 8, 2011

By 

Carissa T. - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms (Paperback)

In this book I really thought that it was helpful for teachers and parents alike. There are always those tough questions that we face as adults when it comes to parenting and educating and this was a helpful resource. One of the main chapters that I focused on was chapter 3. This chapter is about how all parents, students, and administrators are clear on why this technology is being used in the classroom. For parents the first thing that they can do to make sure their child is safe is give their student permission to use this technology for school. Most schools send home an acceptable use sheet to sign and parents should be aware of this and make sure that they get one. Parents also need to communicate with teachers about what the teacher is doing to make sure that student privacy is protected. Parents need to make sure they talk to their children about never putting personal information on the blogs and the parents also need to know the process for reporting problems with blog content. Lastly as a parent they need to oversee the student's blog and then decide what to do with it at the end of the course. When creating a weblog with students always start small and work your way up. Blogger.com created by Google is one of the easiest weblogs for anyone to use, there is no perfect way to use a blog but this one is up there for ease of use and not a lot of confusion. As a teacher it is hard to track all of what your students are doing, however, you can follow your students and watch their posts. You can edit and have different templates and even add pictures to blogs as well.