Show your support via social
media as well as the old-
fashioned way. We can’t
stress this enough. Princi-
pals must let teachers know that they
are behind them 100% and will do
whatever it takes to help them learn
how to integrate web 2.0 tools. From
hiring substitutes so that teachers can
co-teach to visiting classes and show-
ing their approval, principals have to
support teachers’ professional growth.
Now web 2.0 tools can help you
show support. From simple things
such as sending texts messages to a
teacher’s cell phone when you hear
good feedback from a parent or leaving positive posts and supportive messages in teachers’ virtual classrooms to
more involved activities such as creating online extensions of teacher study
groups, web 2.0 can help you incorporate your teachers into a buildingwide
professional learning community.
Share success stories so
teachers can learn from each
other. Let everyone know
what other teachers are do-
ing, and upload artifacts and exam-
ples of their work. For example, one
tech coordinator wanted to share a
great project idea with a teacher who
was anxious about using technology
and couldn’t attend after-hours train-
ing. The coordinator arranged for in‐
class training. After the session, the
teacher and students were confident
and excited about the program. The
teacher was surprised and pleased
that mastering it had taken so little
time. Sharing stories like this among
teachers in your school can encour-
age everyone to try new web 2.0 tools.
Allow teachers to customize
their virtual classrooms.
Thanks to the explosion of
web 2.0 tools and applica-
tions, it seems that not only is there a
tool for everything—such as making
your own newscast with Newsmaker or
cartoons with ToonDoo—but there are
many ways to do the same thing, such
as creating online presentations with
Voice Thread, Prezi, or PhotoPeach.
Ease teachers’ administrative
burdens with simple product-
ivity tools. We observed teach-
ers using tools that support-
ed the management of classroom ac-
tivities and materials. It was easy for
them to upload and update materials
and equally easy for students to down-
load materials and keep track of as-
signments. In addition, many tools
allowed teachers to track student prog-
ress (using time stamps, for example).
Generally, there are few or no
complicated features to learn, and
programming or technical expertise
beyond navigation is seldom required.
For example, online quizzes and quiz
makers, such as BrainPop, Examview,
or QuizStar, and some VLEs offer tools
to create and administer online quizzes for assessment (or self-assessment).
One teacher who used an exam-creation tool in Blackboard felt that it
helped her differentiate instruction,
making it easy for her to test, teach
lessons again, and then retest as many
students as she needed.
For more technologically advanced
teachers who want to create their own
e-learning materials, authoring tools,
such as MyUdutu, Raptivity, or Weebly, let them quickly build online units
they can then move to their virtual
classrooms. One high school language
arts teacher had her Romeo and Juliet
unit online, complete with links to analytical essays, historical information,
and video clips of the same scene from
different productions. Moreover, the
networked world of web 2.0 makes it
easy to create, share, and edit resources
with other teachers.
Update tools regularly. Encourage teachers to look for
the products that work best
for them and their students.
Teachers tell us they love being able to
send automated emails or text messages to remind students about assignment deadlines. They also like VLEs
that let students submit homework
and feature built-in email notification
systems to keep parents informed of
class activities.
Keep communication open.
Web 2.0 tools allow teachers
to extend their communica-
tion options, letting stu-
dents post or send private or public
comments to the teacher. Teachers we
interviewed were engaged in both
public and private online discussion
and communication with their stu-
dents and saw this as an opportunity
to move the conversation about what
they were studying beyond the text-
book and the classroom’s walls.
Create clearly defined
virtual communities to
foster vibrant learning
communities. We all
know how important it is to protect
students from cyberbullying and other
inappropriate communication, so
many schools now restrict email, dis-
able commenting, or limit who can
view the schools’ online spaces. In our
research, we learned that there are im-
portant pedagogical benefits to allow-
ing certain types of communication
but also to limiting communication to
classmates, project teams, or school-
mates. Students are very conscious of
who is reading their work, and this
