Using Web 2.0 and Social Networking Tools in the K-12 Classroom

Beverley E. Crane, MEd in Bilingual Education and English as a Second Language (ESL) and EdD in Curriculum and Instruction, with emphases in Language Arts and Educational Technology, she has taught English-language arts and ESL at the middle-, high-school, and college levels and been involved with the educational community for more than 40 years.

While working on a grant for a five-state area multicultural resource center, she conducted workshops for K-12 teachers on such topics as literacy, writing and the writing process, ESL, and integrating technology into the curriculum. In addition, for 12 years at Dialog, she created educational materials and conducted workshops for K-12 library media specialists and teachers on using online searching in the curriculum. She presented throughout the United States across curriculum areas at conferences, such as the American Association of School Librarians (AASL), the National Educational Computing Conference (NECC), Computer-Using Educators (CUE), American Educational Research Association (AERA), National Council for the Social Studies Conference (NCSS), California Media and Library Educators Association (CMLEA), among others on topics ranging from using online searching in the elementary and secondary curricula to computers and writing to integrating online searching into social studies to online research across the curriculum. As director of the English Education Program at San Jose State University for five years, she worked closely with classroom teachers and administrators to provide guidelines for mentor teachers supervising English student teachers at SJSU.

Currently, she continues to write articles on using the Internet in the curriculum for the Information Searcher, as well as keeping up her website and blog. She also creates training materials, including distance education online courses and self-paced modules in searching techniques for Dialog and is editor of the Dialog customer e-newsletters. Her books Teaching with the Internet: Strategies and Models for K-12 Curricula, Internet Workshops: 10 Ready-to-Go Workshops for K-12 Educators and Using Web 2.0 Tools in the K-12 Classroom with accompanying website were published by Neal-Schuman in 2000, 2003, and 2009, respectively. Her latest book Using Web 2.0 Tools and Social Networking in the K-12 Classroom with its accompanying website will be available in February 2012.