Web 2.0 makes lifelong learning possible through the continuous exchange of information between individuals in social networks, like Pinterest, Facebook, MyFitnessPal and GoogleDrive. Information brought into the social network is captured within the tool, refined by peers and shared with the entire network, creating a more complete and reliable database. If we take Pinterest as an example of how this works, an individual may “pin” a photo of a bathroom make-over for his friends to see, one friend learns an idea from the photo that he wants to save, so he “repins” it with slight caption modifications for all of his friends to see. The ideas pass from person to person until several people have that photo saved in their knowledge databases.
Web 2.0 has lead to the emergence of learning 2.0, which challenges traditional learning, where predefined knowledge was passed from a predefined “teacher” to a predefined “student”. In learning 2.0 the content and the roles can change. As in the Pinterest example above, knowledge can be shared by anyone, including students, who have valuable experience in the field, thus unpredictably shaping the content of a lesson. This model also allows students to request exactly the information they need when they need it, by sharing challenges they have seen in practice, a concept called “demand-pull” in the Brown-Adler article, “Minds on Fire: Open Education, the Long Tail and Learning 2.0”. This is converse to the traditional model where a teacher would “supply-push” theoretical practices that students may or may not confront in the field.
The emerging tools in Web 2.0 are making it easier and more natural for communities of practice to develop outside of the classroom setting. Communities of practice allow beginners to learn from the content masters through “peripheral participation”, by giving them access to discussions of the problems and solutions currently occuring in practice. Beginners eventually add their own commentary when they absorb enough knowledge to form their own opinions. Tools that connect people like Pinterest, Facebook, MyFitnessPal and GoogleDrive are naturally occurring social assets, meaning people train themselves to use them, and the information navigation is intuitive. What aspects of these social tools can be leveraged to immerse students in active communities of practice?
First off I like how you looked at as Web 2.0 tools as making lifetime learning possible which really seems like very prominent statement and great opening line. With the growing use of technology not just in a web 2.0 scenario but also technology use growing as a whole and being able to utilize web 2.0 technologies would make the people that use them gain a step up in any learning process. I would have add to you statement about being able to develop outside the classroom as many people are utilizing web 2.0 technologies without being involved in any classroom. Even utilizing your example about Pinterest it is evident that people can use web 2.0 technologies for personal out of classroom use because they want to make over their bathroom just as your example points out. I would have to agree with that people can take many of the web 2.0 technologies and learn them on their own outside of a classroom setting and I believe it adds a great strength to students who utilize it. To answer your question about using web 2.0 to leverage learning a sense of accomplishment for students can be found such as making a how to video for a class project then positing it to the class then each student has to produce a like product based on what they have seen. Also as other readers have mentioned web 2.0 technologies can be used to ensure students are fully aware of what is going on in a class by promoting polls and of course discussions for the students to discuss through social means such as Facebook making web 2.0 technologies and above an ever-growing part of any learning experience.
Good question about challenging people’s expectations for a social asset. I took an Art MOOC last year which attempted to use a Facebook page to post updates and spark conversations. Even with thousands of students in the course, few students used the page. I myself only check the page 2 or 3 times during the course. It wasn’t required for the course completion though. I think students will do whatever they are required to do. A parallel example may be chat, which used to only be used for social interaction, but now it’s a main communication tool for my workplace. I guess we need to decide, what service Facebook offers that learning can benefit from. Public display of completed work? …in view of parents, relatives and friends? Potentially, this could motivate a students to perform at the top of their games for a particular assignment.
Jess, I very much like the phrased you used — naturally occurring social assets– and you are right, because that’s exactly what they are, social and assets. I was wondering while I was reading your post, whether you think that WEb 2.0 also lends itself to formal learning? I.e., do you think people are okay with using social assets to do what they want to do, but might they get miffed if we started to impose ‘learning’ on them?
I haven’t come across students who feel their opinion doesn’t matter yet. I have come across students who are dismissive to doing not just electronic work, but any form of homework. This still gives me difficulty and I keep trying new things.
The way I use Web 2.0 besides discussion boards are surveys or polls which I typically keep anonymous. I use it as a formative assessment to see how students are doing with the material. For our midterm I had them rank different big ideas from the year from hardest to easiest, and this helped guide my midterm review the week before the test.
I try to be very transparent with them on how I will be using their inputs online to show them that each response will really help me and the class as a community.
Meredith – Thanks for sharing your experience with MyBigCampus! In getting wrapped up in the possibilities created by these social Web 2.0 tools, I’ve started to wonder what the role of the “facilitator” would be in the future.
I think your question about how to deal with lack of participation could make up a bulk of the “facilitator’s” role in future learning 2.0 environments. Relating this to my experience, I work on a design team which includes a few introverts and our supervisor (aka facilitator) outwardly makes an effort to ask questions that everyone must answer, so we can develop an overall group reflection. For example, questions might be, “What was everyone’s biggest success story of the past year?” or “What is your biggest frustration right now with the current process?” We usually go in order around the room, but in a class it could go alphabetically or randomly as long as the facilitator keeps track of who has not weighed in and reaches out for that person’s valuable opinion to develop the overall response. Do you think people in class hesitate to respond because they don’t feel like their opinion matters? Or could the content be presented so quickly that students are too overwhelmed to form an opinion at all? It may be overkill to hear from everyone every day, but what might be a reasonable frequency in your classes to hear everyone’s input? And between those big feedback days, what other 2.0 tools could be used to monitor how individuals are doing?
I use a website in my classroom called mybigcampus. Through this page, I can set up discussion boards, post reference materials, class materials and assignments, and also communicate with each of my students. The set up of this page is identical to mybigcampus. I play around with mybigcampus and it’s uses all of the time. It’s only my second year using so I’m learning new things all of the time. One use that I found very interseting was creating a discussion board. I had students watch a video online and then respond on the discussion board by either asking a question, writing about the experience of watching the video, or reflecting on what they learned that they didn’t know before. I was amazed by how well students were responding and not just to the prompts but to each others posts. The level of communication I saw displayed by freshman in high school was reflective of the level of communication you would expect of undergraduates. The students who posted questions had responses back from their peers with answers.
The only problem I run into with the use of Web 2.0 tools to communicate, is what happens with the student who doesn’t do the work/doesn’t care to do their homework? How would we handle this as facilitators?