It was interesting to find out a bit more about web 2 technology and the teaching potential it may have if used appropriately.
I visited wikispaces.com and was surprised how easily accessible this website is. The registration process is straight forward and literally takes a couple of minutes. The website is very easy to navigate and there is a short tutorial available when you first log in - this makes it even more accessible for someone (like myself) who has never used wiki style websites.
The layout is very clear and you can see straight away that there is a lot of potential there. You can personalise your wiki in terms of its layout, face and content. It allows you to add widgets, pictures, links and RSS feeds to your site as well as upload files and invite other people to join you.
The fact that it's easy to set up, edit (changing font type, colour and size to cater for users with reading difficulties, dyslexia etc) and navigate makes it extremely accessible and therefore suitable to be used as a teaching tool. I can imagine using it as a tool to set my students additional homework and provide materials for autonomous / flipped learning. It would also make a good collaborative tool as it allows memebers to communicate and exchange resources/ideas in a safe, monitored environment.
It would take time to train some of my ESOL learners (language barrier but also limited electronic literacies) to become competent at using wikispaces, but I would definitely give it a go with a group of EFL learners of the intermediate level and above.
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