Elementary Education Resources:

 Wiki in education can be a very powerful tool. As a teacher I can write units of study with fellow teachers without having to actually beg for release time or planning time. We can simply put our units together using Wiki. We can edit, add, etc in order to come up with a unit that works best for us. Book clubs in elementary grades can use Wiki in order to track character changes, elements of genre, setting, plot, etc. Two sites that I really liked that had units posted using Wikis are www.education.wikia.com and www.coolcatteacher.blogspot.com. Coolcatteacher even had interviews with a teacher that uses Wiki's for almost everything.  As for using Wiki's in the classroom, the uses are endless. Any project that kids work on that require them to research can be turned in to a Wiki. Study guides, vocabulary, subject notes, multimedia presentations, etc. I really like that you know which students do what work. This enables the teacher to see if anyone is slacking on their group project. This seems to be a continual problem, at least in elementary school.

www.solutionwatch.com is a great wewww.quia.comb 2.0 resource site that offers links to various Web2.0 sites/tools. You can access sites like www.stu.dicio.us.com which has student organizers and social notetaking tools. www.gradefix.com offers organizers and helps students prioritize their assignments. There is also a link to teacher chalksite where teachers can list lessons and assignments. I think these sites are particularly helpful in the middle and high school levels where organization and prioritizing work is a larger focus.

Www.voicethread.com is a great site that lets you upload pictures and add audio. Vistors can leave audio comments by phone or the computer microphone. It also lets you video doodle which kids love to do. They can creat their own stories, do voice overs, and post it for others to comment on.

Www.daftDoggy.com lets you create website tours where you leave your own descriptions or instructions on each site. You can also create scavenger hunts where visitors leave comments. This enables teachers to create scavenger hunts or tours for students to take on a given topic. You can then read the students comments to see if they are finding the answers or if they are comprehending the topic.

Any of these sites offer great resources for enhancing students learning as well as offering resources for teachers.

 Other Elementary Education Resources:

Web 2.0 offers a wide range of resources for the classroom teacher. There are many sites that can be utilized to enhance and supplement instruction. One site that provides wonderful games for reinforcement of math concepts is www.e-learningforkids.org

This website offers great games and concepts reminders for students. If you are fortunate enough to have computers in your classroom, you could set up a small group to work on the math concept taught in class to reinforce those concepts or to review old concepts as needed. These games and exercises are not only fun, but worthwhile educationally too!

Another site worth taking a look at is www.nces.ed.gov

I found this site could be useful in regards to many different subject areas. I particularly liked the make a graph feature. Students could use this site to create bar graph, line graphs, pictographs, etc. If you are teaching graphing in math or charting observation and results in a science lab, using this site would benefit the students. Not only is it teaching them how to graph, but also the many ways data can be represented.

History Resources:

Web 2.0 gives students the opportunity to have an interactive experience, while enriching their knowledge of history.    One site I found valuable was historyonair.com.  Through this  site, students have access to pod-cast's about Ancient Egypt and Cleopatra, as well as pod-casts from classrooms and Universities.  Another site of great value was www.edu2.org, where students can sit in on lesson about various topics, chat with other people and take quizzes to measure their knowledge.   If you are looking for a site rich with multi-media, try www.greatestplaces.org.  Here students can watch movies, get directions for hands on projects and add their "vote" for the greatest place to travel.

Www.activehistory.co.uk is another great site. You can search by topic or time period. I choose slave plantations and found lists of slaves that I then needed to research through the various links to find out the work they did on plantations and their punishments. It also has something called "head2head" that enables you to hold virtual interviews with past historians. You simply type in a question and he/she answers it. It was really very interesting. This site also offers on-line simulations, educational games, worksheets, and lesson plans. This site has a great deal to offer classes of all ages.

Language Resources:

A great resource for ELL teachers/students is www.avatarlanguages.com This site has many lessons and lets you edit them to your specific needs for your students. You can go to Wikiversity and review pages on TESOL, watch videos, get resources, etc. There are links to www.education2.0 which is a blog with resources for teaching with web 2.0. You can also link to www.blogs2teach.com, www.images2teach.com, podcasting, games, and teacher training. All of these focus on teaching English as a second language (TESOL).

Www.scribd.com is a site where students and/or teachers can post books or stories they have written, science projects, graphing projects, etc. There are also language lessons with links to 2nd life and other virtual worlds. This site also offers video clips, how to use 2nd life for web quests, using Skype or Google talk in your teaching.

Spanish

Quia is a resource that let's teachers of any discipline transform their contenrt into easy to understand flash games. These games can then be shared with other teachers, used in the classroom, or emailed to parents as extra practice for struggling learners or ambitious students.

Livemocha is a language-learning social network that allows users to make an account and take free language courses online. These courses are interactive and all written or spoken activities are corrected by online peers who speak the native language, and, since real interaction in the target lanugage is crucial to language acquisition, the site enables chat between native speakers learning opposite languages. Livemocha also sends regular progress reports to its users so they can keep track of their work.

The Literacy Center has a page that offers activities for beginnners in English, German, French and Spanish.

Languageguide.org has a number of sound-integreated resources for language learners in many languages. Users can browse topic areas in vocabulary and grammar.