Expressions of delight and anticipation are a direct result of a schoolwide writing program designed by teachers to develop language skills in special education students. These second graders participated in a writing project that made use of wikis to facilitate collaboration among the students, parents, teachers, and university members of their…

Faculties at all levels of education continue to ask, "How does technology fit into my teaching?" How can I teach my students to become technologically literate?" For some, the answers seem quite simple. Technology should be integrated into as many levels of the curriculum as possible. If we aspire to prepare students for the…

Digital technologies have changed the way students read and communicate. Subsequently, teachers must use technology to engage their students in learning. This article illustrates the value of using Web 2.0 tools (blogs, wikis, and digital media-sharing) in the social studies classroom. Additionally, a social studies teacher shares insights into…

In this paper, we present the integration of a Wiki with lecture recordings using a tool called "aofconvert", enabling the students to visually reference lecture recordings in the Wiki at a precise moment in time of the lecture. This tight integration between a Wiki and lecture materials allows the students to elaborate on the topics…

Popular technologies offer new and exciting ways to capitalize on the strengths of authentic writing, the power of the writing process, and the engagement of collaborative writing. Blogs are one of those technologies. Blogs are websites that allow individuals to create personal webpages of text, pictures, graphics, videos, and other multimedia…

A Web mashup is an application that combines data and functionality from more than one source. By bringing disparate data together in ways that enable users to do new things or accomplish common tasks with newfound efficiency, mashups are rapidly increasing in number and may offer exciting new possibilities for classroom instruction. However, in…

In the 2007-2008 school year, Jennifer Hunt, language arts teacher for the 8th grade pre-Advanced Placement class wondered how she could harness the power of Web 2.0 tools to develop her students' literacy skills and deepen their engagement with literature and ideas. To that end, she wrote a successful Qwest Arizona Technology in Education…

The problem of the relation of theory to practice in teaching and teacher training has been a major issue of debate for a long time. Well over a century ago, Dewey (1904) discussed the tensions between the role of theoretical insight as a preparation for the teaching profession versus the need for more practical, how-to-do-it courses in which one…

"VideoPaper Builder" (VPB) was originally funded in 2001 through the National Science Foundation's "Bridging Research and Practice" program in recognition of the software's promise to articulate the relevance and facilitate the dissemination of educational research to practicing teachers. After four years and two subsequent…