One of our clients, a well known virtual school in US is trying to use Web 2.0 tools in their online courses. I have used widgets and polls in my blogs. Years ago when I was working for a large social networking site, I enjoyed adding the social interactivity bit to the site. O'Reilly was just catching up at that time and Facebook was a fetus.
In virtual school curriculum when the students don't meet up then polls and gadgets do enhance the learning process. It adds the stickiness to the content and technology is used to create widgets like mortgage calculators etc. Poll responses used to help a lot in understanding online statistics and opinions and teachers can use them to know the students in a virtual environment.
There are also games and simulations that prepare the students to face a practical situation and be motivated to use whatever they have learnt in the lesson. Wow that sure sounds cool...I wonder why we need to commute to school everyday :)
