In our practice we have not used the specific sites mentioned in this post. We have been working primarily with Gmail, pbwiki, and a functionality that we call a Pub Center that is built on the infrastructure of basecamp. Given the pace of change in the social Web, we are always exploring and testing new functionalities that will be most appropriate to get to success in any particular engagement.
However, the conditions described in the post below are central to our vision of how to make schools learning organizations that are tied to a natural cycle of knowledge creation and therefore improving outcomes.
School Learning Goes Web 2.0
The new “social Web” or Web 2.0 is gradually having an impact in schools as teachers and students begin to explore the potential of social networking, blogs, shared online features and wikis. These technologies are giving rise to new educational opportunities - social collaborative learning. As time goes on, teachers are increasingly becoming familiarized with these new technologies and are using blogs and wikis more and more. They are beginning to catch up with their students who are already accustomed to socializing online, instant messaging, podcasting etc. Earlier forms of online education, such as e-learning, have traditionally focused on publishing content online, but the social Web today has empowered individuals to actively share knowledge and learning experiences. Sites like Schoopy, Groupvine, mynoteIT, Carmun and Haiku are built upon community communications among students and teachers; each revolves around online collaboration on projects via social networking/blogs and wikis as well as tools like online grade tracker, shared files/calendar, managing class schedules and assignments. read more