R/W Tools

I have actually heard of some of the R/W tools I read about this week. Some of the tools I was unfamiliar with include; Photo Sharing with Flickr, School 2.0, Google Docs, Feed Readers and RSS, Streaming Media, Mashups, Aggregators, and Online Graphing Tools. So, I was very unfamiliar with maybe half of the R/W tools! I can't believe there are so many resources available for teachers online!

Google Docs are a free and collaborative alternative to Microsoft Word. They were formerly known as Writely and used mostly by K-12 educators. They can be accessed from anywhere with an Internet connection and worked on collaboratively. It's considered a R/W program because you can do anything from write a book to reading something someone else created. I have never even heard of Google Docs until I read about it this week, so I haven't gotten a chance to use it yet!

All of these R/W tools apply to kids today, and are being used by the Net Gens everyday! Some of the other R/W tools they are using are blogging, video sharing, secondlife, and instant messaging. Teachers are using some of these same tools in their classrooms to bring in the familiar technology that their students are so familiar with to help close the gap between the outside world and school.