WiZiQ is an online teaching platform, which provides a free virtual classroom environment for teachers to interact online and teach students in real time. Teachers can also build a profile, keep an availability schedule, and maintain a content library, which is associated with their profiles, by uploading PowerPoint presentations and PDF Files.

Importance in Education

Education like any other field, is evolving and e-learning is fast gaining significance in this domain. Web 2.0 has catalyzed this more and with a host of new tools, which can be deployed in teaching and learning, education will never be the same. WiZiQ has been a pioneer in this space with the free virtual classroom among other useful Web 2.0 features for educators and students like profiles, networking, content library, tests etc. As an online education platform, WiZiQ is focused towards education by actively participating in education technology networks, getting feedback from teachers and students about usability and using all this information to evolve further.

Free Online Virtual Classroom

WiZiQ’s free Virtual Classroom is an online internet mediated classroom where the teacher and the students are connected to share a common workspace. In this online session, they make use of audio-video conferencing, text chat, whiteboard, and content sharing capabilities. There are no costs for using the virtual classroom. The sessions are recorded and are available online on WiZiQ, which can be accessed for later review or reference.

Attendees can join a session with privileges to converse verbally with others; draw and write on whiteboard; and share Presentations, PDFs, Flash and Images. The teacher may withdraw or re-assign these privileges to the attendees. A Teacher can withdraw privileges from the attendee in terms that the attendee can not converse, or upload anything to share on whiteboard; in this case, the attendee is a spectator. An attendee can also request for rights, in which case, the teacher can click on the attendee’s name to transfer control.

We’re still pre-launch but @ eduFire we’re hoping to join some of the other start-ups mentioned in this post and play a big part in moving online learning out of the dark ages into a new world where it’s fun and vibrant.

It’s that time of year, when all the blogs do a “best of” post for the year, and set some goals or predictions for the next year. Since I’ve been reading these like crazy, I thought I’d distill down the list to a few grea…

We (University of Hertfordshire in the UK) are currently beta-testing a new site – dexmo.com

It is currently being tested by the law faculty only, but it can be used by anyone, anywhere.

It still has some features to launched, but could be useful.

The twist, of course, is that this is *teachers* looking to use Web. 20 in the classroom. While the levels of interest and commitment vary, the network has been growing 100 – 150 educators a week for some months, and there is at the core of users a passionate belief that the advent of the read/write web will be as significant socially, culturally, and educationally as the advent of the printing press–and likely more so. There are many educators who will tell you that their own learning has been transformed by the resources, networking, and collaborative aspects of Web 2.0–and they are intested in enabling the same engagement in their students that they now feel.

So, the discussions at CR 2.0 are not just about what tools can be used, but how the tools are changing how we think about learning and education. A couple of quick notes:

1. On the front page of the site, there is a linked list of read/write, “social” technologies that educators are using (or trying to use) in schools. For each category (e.g., “collaborative documents”) the link takes you to forum discussions about that particular Web 2.0 technology and classroom use.

2. We also used Larry Ferlazzo’s post as a springboard for a discussion on 2007’s best Web 2.0 apps for education, but of course our list is largely from the perspective of educators: http://www.clas...3ATopic%3A91412

3. Social networking in education is the fascinating dark horse in education. The stigma of MySpace/etc. has overshadowed the amazing changes that take place in educational environments when the tools of social networking are used with students and teachers. “Social Networks” are really just collections of Web 2.0 technologies used to build communities. CR 2.0 just won the 2007 EduBlog Award for “best use of a social network for educational purposes,” and there are many other just-as-worthy social networks building around both classroom use and teacher development. Ning has been the clear leader in this regard (all of the finalists for the award were Ning-based networks), largely because of the ability to build specialized networks, and their intuitive threaded discussion forums. (Full disclosure: I like what Ning does so much that I do consulting work for them, and run another Ning network for educators using Ning, http://education.ning.com.)

I think we are in a very exciting time in history, and hope that you’ll continue to look at the uses of Web 2.0 in education, both from the student and educator perspectives, even when the news isn’t slow.

Granted this isn’t an appropriate site for K-12 students, nor even most undergraduate courses, but for education writ large, aka life-long learning, this site is the best resource I’ve found. It beats the pants off of JFGI. And come on, don’t we all spend at least $40 on a technical book every month? And sadly, too, those giant tomes tend to become obsolete in a few years. (Anybody want to buy my “Agile Web Development with Rails, 1st Edition”? I didn’t think so.)