Classroom 2.0 Discussion Groups

I highly recommend Classroom 2.0 as a tool for educators ( http://www.classroom20.com/ ). In addition to various blogs and wikis, discussion groups and other informative, collaborative social networking, the site also has some interesting tools you can embed into your own elements. Check it out!

DigiSkills Group

"Developing Digital Skills @ School" is devoted to teachers and students working on innovative digital teaching methods like blogging, webquests, wikis, podcasting et cetera. Additionally, the project is open to educators all over the world.

http://grou.ps/digiskills/blogs

New Technology: Voice Thread

Did you ever want to share a photo, and get comments back from viewers? Voice Thread (http://voicethread.com/) allows you to post a photo or a diagram and allow for responses from the viewers. There is an extensive series of demos and tutorials, so pop onto the site and check it out. It really is quite awesome.

"A VoiceThread is an online media album that can hold essentially any type of media (images, documents and videos) and allows people to make comments in 5 different ways - using voice (with a microphone or telephone), text, audio file, or video (with a webcam) - and share them with anyone they wish. They can even be exported to an Archival Movie for offline use on a DVD or video-enabled MP3 player. A VoiceThread allows group conversations to be collected and shared in one place, from anywhere in the world."

• By Voice (mic or phone), Text, Audio file, or Webcam. Simple voice recording within your web browser allows you to collect the voices of an entire group on a single page. All you need is a mic and Flash Player 7+. Capturing voices couldn't be easier.
• Video Doodling allows you to control the playback of a video as you comment using a mic or webcam, giving you the power to voice comment over specific segments of video. Move to a spot, doodle, then move to another, all while commenting.
• The Doodler is a new way of annotating. It captures your drawing as an animation synced to your voice or text commentary. Instead of seeing the final product of your thoughts, viewers can see the actual process. Doodling delivers a sense of live presence.
• Put your VoiceThread on any site you want, or better yet, put it on many. Embedding is easy and allows you to add group collaboration to any website. Whether it's feedback, critique, or group story-telling, collect it how and where you want.