Scootle is a tool that is used regularly at my school. We are very fortunate to have access to thousands of learning objects and Australian curriculum content. The resources are very valuable and allow us to teach concepts to the students using digital media. When I use Scootle I create learning paths for students and organise the content I have bookmarked into topics so that they can also access them at home for revision.
In terms of social networking sites, I am an occasional user of Facebook. However I think there are many issues around the use of these sites, most of them have already been published in the news. As for Twitter, I have joined twice now but really have not used it well. I do love technology but I can't imagine making tweets several times a day. In saying that though I have seen some really amazing content shared by other CEO staff, e.g Simon Crook.
Linked In is a tool that I need to explore a little bit further so I will get back to that one later.
I have to say I was surprised to see Second Life as part of the Web 2.0 course. Is anyone actually using this in schools? I think it is fascinating and when I used it for the first time I could not believe that we could actually exist in a virtual world. I explored this tool in a Digital Literacy course that I did at Sydney University. The lecturer used it for a virtual learning space. We each created an avatar and she opened up a room. All of the students flew into the room and we had learning conversations online. The different between this and online chat for example is that you can interact with other avatars, dance with each other, go to a different virtual world, buy a house, get a job, earn money. It kind of blurs the distinction between fantasy and reality. It is really is incredible but once again you would need to have a lot of time on your hands to use this and I am sure real world social skills would regress!! In saying this though, the possibility for learning in a global virtual classroom is amazing.
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