What is Web 2.0?

Web 2.0 changed the average internet surfer from passive consumer to active participant. The level of participating can vary from simple rating or voting through blogs and galleries to creative learning communities.
Web 2.0 is about sharing your ideas and opinios. It's about open source applications and free tools for everybody. It's about giving and getting.
Web 2.0 supports the idea of an active and creative learner. As tools for collaboration make the learning process visible, the focus changes from the product to the process. And thus, the teacher's role changes from a distributor of knowledge to a guide on the path of learning and understanding.

Web 1.0 is one-way	Web 2.0 is two-way
Web 1.0 is authoritarian	Web 2.0 is democratic
Web 1.0 is passive	Web 2.0 is active
Web 1.0 is hierarchical	Web 2.0 is network
Web 1.0 is static	Web 2.0 is dynamic
Web 1.0 is read-only content	Web 2.0 is user-generated content
Web 1.0 is about companies	Web 2.0 is about communities
Web 1.0 is about client-server	Web 2.0 is about peer-to-peer
Web 1.0 is about lectures	Web 2.0 is about conversation
Web 1.0 is closed	Web 2.0 is collaborative

What are blogs?

Using a blog in a project

In a learning project it's good to pay attention to which parts of the process can be shared with everybody and which parts should be carried out in safe and private environment.
On one hand, pupils' collaboration: forums, chats and wikis must take place in a secure protected environment. On the other hand, it's important to share the process and its outputs with the whole school, parents and the surrounding community.
Blogs are excellent for being used as project diaries. You can write there weekly what's happening in the project, publish pictures, make links to photo galleries and embed video clips, podcasts and presentations. You may also allow commenting, but blogs aren't good tools for discussions.
Remember to link your blog on the school homepage, so that it can be found easily.

A video presentation of Connectivism

Tools for planning a project

 It's really important to share some information and discuss and decide a few basic things before you start an eTwinning project. Together with your partner(s) you should agree on 

• project goals
• pedagogical contents
• the tools you'll use
• the timetable 

Often this is done by sending a lot of emails back and forth. A more effective way is to create a common workspace for making a project plan together.
Very good tools for this is Google Docs. Google Docs offers you a space where you can share and edit a Word-document together with your project partners. You can also publish it in the net, when you've completed it. It's quite easy (and free) to use.
Google Docs is a great collaborative tool also for learning.

What's google docs and what is it for?

Google Docs

View more presentations from Wayne Highlands School District.

How to share your documents

Very often etwinning projects are about learning to know different countries and their cultures. That usually starts from presenting your own culture and country in different ways.
Students can make short videos presenting their own school. They can make slideshows to present their home town and their favourite places. They can make podcasts (or videos) of their traditional songs. They can make photo galleries or photo stories about the surrounding nature. They can prepare quizzes and questionnaires etc.
Web 2.0 provides excellent tools for sharing all kinds of digital documents for free. You can show and share what you have accomplished, not only with your partners, but with the whole school, parents, surrounding community, with the whole world, if you like.
The procedure is simple: First create an account and upload your documents to the appropriate place on the web. Then you can link or embed your documents in your blog, so that they're easy for everybody to find and watch.
For videos: YouTube or TeacherTube or Vimeo
For PowerPoints and pdf-documents and presentations: SlideShare or Authorstream or Slideboom
For photos: Flickr or Picasa
For articles and photos and for creating a web magazine: Magazinefactory