Web2.0 Resources

These are some web2.0 sites. Many are interactive and all can be used by teachers of any subject at any level (with one exception). I encourage you to check them out and see if you can make use of any of them in your class. I advise starting with one you really see a way to get creative with and getting good with that one. Then, as you begin to master that one, try another.


The Machine is Us/ing Us is a little video that shows how much writing and reading are changing. It also highlights the need for educators to keep up.

A Vision of Students Today is another video. College students let us know a little about how much they use technology.

Blabberize allows the user to upload a picture and then record something to make it talk.

Bubbl.Us is an online way to create clusters/idea webs.

Classtools.net has different useful tools. I like to use the countdown clock.

Common Craft has a number of three minute videos that cleverly explain a variety of web2.0 tools, as well as a few other needed explanations (anyone see zombies?).

Dabble Board is an online white board.

Definr is the fastest definition finder on the Internet. It says so right on the page.

Delicious is a social bookmarking site. You can save websites you like, tag them, and share them with others. It is an online tool, so you can use it from any computer hooked up to the Internet.

Free Rice is a game site, but with a difference. For every correct answer to the different online quizzes, ten grains of rice are donated to alleviate world hunger. It allows players to start at their own level and then gets easier or harder based on the answers the player gives.

Gallery of Writing was set up by the NCTE to showcase writing from around the country. They have open submissions and encourage participation.

Glogster is a kind of poster that is fully designed by the user. Users can incorporate text, images, music and video into their work.

Live Binders is a way to collect and present webpages on related subjects.

Make Belief Comix is another comics creator.

Prezi is a new online presentation tool that is a step beyond PowerPoints. It incorporates motion and zooming to make presentations more dynamic.

Slide Boom allows you to upload PowerPoint presentations to the web. After that, you can embed them in blogs, wikkis, websites, etc.

ToonDoo is a comics creation website. Users can make a short comic strip.

Virtual Literary Worlds is a series of links to online virtual worlds based on famous literature.

Voice Thread is a multimedia collaboration tool.

Wall Wisher is a virtual classroom bulletin board.

Wordle allows you generate text clouds.

Zamzar is a file converter. You send one type of medium to Zamzar, like a YouTube video, and convert it to another, like a Quicktime file. This is one way to get around blocks to YouTube and show your students those interesting videos you find.

Random End of Year Short Poems

If I am going to encourage and insist that my students write, it is only fair that I do as well. I like shorter verse quite often: haiku, tanka, senryu, kwansaba. Here are a few I have written (mainly during lunch duty) in the past week or two.


where they hear music
all i can perceive is noise--
generation gap

©2010-Art Belliveau


the saddest fact is
i just cannot reach them all--
but i have to try

©2010-Art Belliveau


greeting his friends while
moving from table to table--
lunchtime is busy

©2010-Art Belliveau


outside the classroom
flying free from branch to branch
the joyful bird sings

©2010-Art Belliveau


The end of the school year comes,
at times seeming glacial in its pace.
Other times it flashes forward. It seems
as though I am living my life
as part of a cosmic traffic jam.
Moving in fits and starts, but aching
to find open road and cruise away.

©2010-Art Belliveau

Limerick 05/03/10

There once was a student in school,
Who never would follow a rule.
He'd sleep at his desk,
And make a big mess,
As he covered the whole thing in drool.

©2010-Art Belliveau

Swimming with Sharks 04/30/10

a darkened classroom
after school
on a Friday afternoon

the echoes of
the students’ voices
silently resound
in my head
as i sit here

papers are getting graded
grades are being entered
and yet...

i feel
(as i so often do)
that i am swimming
against the tide

being pulled away
from what i find important

being pulled under
by this rip tide current
of red tape
and record keeping

when all i want to do
is swim free
and play in the waves
of words
and books
and poems
and the creativity
of my students

©2010-Art Belliveau

senryu 04/29/10

as the year winds down
the students are "summer ready"--
the teachers more so

©2010-Art Belliveau

Nothing to See?

I should be grading papers and entering grades into the computer, but instead...

Well, I was looking at a post from the webcartoon xkcd. And after seeing it again, I made an education connection to it. Here's the cartoon.

Well, actually, I think there might be more than one connection. Let me go with the first one I thought of: my students. I try very hard to have much for them to do and think about. While I am the first to admit I am not always successful and class is sometimes (perish the thought) boring, I make an effort. So do most of the other teachers I know.

When students are not ready, not willing, and/or not able to go beneath the surface and immerse themselves in a lesson or a subject, they will be bored. They will see nothing but flat ocean all around them, never even guessing at the wonders that await them if they would simply give it a chance.

It is also a connection I have made with my students before about studying a book or poem. Most of what goes on is beneath the surface. Sure, sometimes all you wanna do is water-ski on top, but sometimes snorkeling or scuba diving is much more fun.

And now to a connection that has occurred to me regarding testing and the way the public at large has been encouraged to look at schools. Test scores are the surface. I hope that I teach my students much more richly than simply to prepare them for a test--and usually a multiple choice test at that. I don't know about you, but life rarely throws a multiple choice test at me. I am given live ammo exercises on a daily basis.

The depth of knowledge that my teachers in grade school, high school, college, and grad school--let me not forget the lessons taught by my parents, grandparents, and great grandparents as well--have helped me to be prepared for them. If all I had been prepped for was multiple choice tests, my life would be a much duller and less successful place.

I like the idea that there is so much going on all around us that we rarely see. It gives me incentive to try to see more. It gives me incentive to try to teach my students and my daughter that there is more to see. And to try to give them some of the tools they will need in order to see it.

remember me?

there are times
as a teacher
i feel pride and shame
simultaneously:

i am in the local B&N
wandering through the
new books section
just chilling out
when it happens
that former student
comes up to me and asks
"Didn't you used to teach 7th grade?"
i admit it
they remember
my name and
tell me theirs
they remember
my class
they remember
that time i listened to them
when no one else would
the time i helped them find that book
that led them to love reading
the time i praised a poem or essay or story
that led them to love writing

they thank me
as i stammer and blush
embarrassed by
their obvious enthusiasm
and affection
and they say
"I just wanted you to know."

and they walk away
never knowing
i have no memory of them
at all
no idea
who they are
even though i wish i did

and i feel the shame

©2010-Art Belliveau