“You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.” - Morpheus, The Matrix (1999)

What is Web 2.0? Essentially it describes web tools that facilitate collaboration and interaction - the user doesn’t just access the resource, they take an active role in creating it. Over the last 5 or 6 years a multitude of websites and applications have emerged, making Web 2.0 tools freely available to educators to enhance the ways students can learn.

This presentation will take you through a sample of the Web 2.0 tools that you can find free on the web and how you can use them to enhance your VCE classroom. The potential of Wikis, Blogs, Forums, Podcasting, and Google Docs in (and out of) the year 12 classroom will be explored.

The beauty of these web 2.0 tools is that they are straightforward to create and manage – if you can use Word then you can use these tools.

They help create ways for students to collaborate on and access a variety of materials both within the classroom and after school hours.

While the focus of the presentation will be on the successes and pitfalls in a Unit 3 and 4 Media classroom, you will quickly make the connections to see how they can be used in a VELS or any other VCE course.

The workshop component will allow you to create accounts and set up and experiment with Wikis, Blogs and Google Docs.