Web 2.0; Education 2.0? Economic and Social Research Council

Economic and Social Research Council (2008) Education 2.0? Designing the Web for Teaching and Learning, a Commentary by the Technology Enhanced Learning phase of the Teaching and Learning Research programme, Economic and Social Research Council; also available online at http://www.tlrp.org/ pub/ documents/ TELcomm.pdf

“Web 2.0 is a reality. Education 2.0 is an aspiration”

Charles crook – What are Web 2.0 technologies and why do they matter?

·         New forms of social participation

·         Growth in sheer numbers of internet users/increase in engagement

·         Internet allows ‘virtualisation of exchange practices’

·         Concepts behind web 2.0 – collaboration,publication,literacies,inquiries

·         Promotes – play,expressive,reflective, exploratory

“in adapting web 2.0 education will have to confront the challenge of cultivating learner discernment as well as that of stimulating learner participation”

Selwyn – education hopes and fears

• Extremes of views: complete transformation of education vs moral panic about death of education
• Links between socio-cultural theories of learning and web 2.0 (active and authentic learning/co-construction of knowledge)
• Fears – heightened disengagement, alienation, disconnection of learners, erosion of ‘traditional’ literacies. Realignment of power between learner/teachers
• Long running debates: devaluing of state run education;erosion of public values; continued viability of schooling

Selwyn – Learning and social networking

• Environments for democratic forms of self expression
• Often used in micro management of social lives
• Share features of good education technology – permit peer feedback, match social context, collaboration and participation
• ?could social networking augment conventional interactions and dialogue
• ?could it provide channels for informal and unstructured learning
• ?could it provide opportunities to re-engage individuals with learning and promote critical thinking

“one of the main educational uses of social networking is seen to lie in their support for interaction between learners facing the common dilemma of negotiating their studies”

Education 2.0 – Selwyn, Crook, Noss, Laurillard

• Evidence is that learners don’t use web 2.0 in straightforward educational ways
• Web 2.0 space for learners and informal learning rather than for teachers and formal provision of learning
• Learner engagement rooted firmly in the realities of day to day life
• Clash between learners informal uses and more formal aims of education
• Academics need to lessen gap between informal practices and formal procedures
• Reconfigure the role _ teacher; education institution; forms of assessment; curriculum
• Education has more intensive needs but doesn’t have commercial power to attract significant R&D to serve needs
• ?can education be subjected to perpetual beta?
• Education requires systems that are stable, available, reliable, accessible
• Internet in its adolescent phase – playful, over emotional and profoundly informal

“Ed 2.0 will come about as web 2.0 tools are appropriated by learners independently of formal educational systems”

“ Web 2.0 can have profoundly challenging and disruptive influence in an educational setting”

Comments

I did not find this report as negative as some have suggested and it seems that a reasonable approach is taken. It does however seem to focus on the difference between life technology use and learning technology use, and may be subtly suggesting that the two don't mix. Here is evident that technology is being used by student in the supportive and informal elements of learning. I like the idea of narrowing the gap between formal and informal learning - especially as I work in a volunteer sector.

I love the metaphor of the internet as an adolescent - it embodies the potential, the empowerment, and the diversity of what is on offer (although this may not be what the writers intended). You can help to shape them but ultimately you can't control what they do, just give the guidance and hope they take the right path. This is what we seem to be saying about making learning learner led. An interesting topic with educational reforms being discussed in parliament recently. By the way, Plato was not a proponent of forcing learning - "compulsory learning never sticks in the mind". Does being learner led take us full circle?

They do pick up on the point about commercial power. If our schools move away from central government funding and authority - will they have more control and power to change? But then does that move us away from an egalitarian system of schooling and back towards Noble's those who can pay for education?