Classroom2.0

I stumbled upon http://www.classroom20.com/ while looking for links to add to my blog for the first assignment. It is difficult to give a brief synopsis of the benefits of this site because; even after a solid hour of exploring, I feel that I had only viewed a small portion of what was being offered. Of course, one of the main benefits of this site, and others like it, is the ability to communicate with teachers from all over the world. You can also invite fellow teachers to join. Utilizing a free site, with a fairly simple interface, is a good way to overcome technologic short comings which some of use may unfortunately face in under-funded schools. For example, even if your school lacked a functioning or reliable website, the motivated teacher could use a site like Classroom2.0 to set up a forum through which he and his colleagues could compare notes from a distance.

Another feature of this site that I like is its simple and user friendly search engine. For example I typed in “Spanish verbs” and found a link to a forum asking how best to use technology to teach irregular preterit verbs. From there I was directed to a site entitled “Conjugamos” which offers various resource links and even a timed conjugation quiz. While the latter exercise is not wholly within my philosophy of teaching foreign language it is interesting to see how one simple search can branch out to encompass so many resources.
Another extremely useful aspect of this site is the section for forums. I was especially impressed by the “Success Stories” forum, where teachers share the pros and cons of implementing new techniques and technologies. Of course teaching will always be a game of trail and error; but we can greatly enhance our efficiency by not only learning from our successes and failures, but also by learning from the successes and failures of our colleagues worldwide.