ding ding's List: Web2.0 & education

• more control of their learning
• expressive capability
• facilitate more collaborative ways of working,
• How and to what extent are young people using Web 2.0 technologies outside of education
• potential benefits, opportunities and issues
• e-safety/child protection
• How aware are learners, schools, parents and teachers of the risks

5 more annotations...

• learning management systems do not support a social constructivist  approach which emphasizes self-governed learning activities of students.
• distance education or campus based education,
• "ICT has penetrated tertiary education, but has had more impact on administrative  services (e.g. admissions, registration, fee payment, purchasing) than on the  pedagogic fundamentals of the classroom." (OECD,  2005, p. 15)
• t is argued that social software tools enable a different way of using the  web within an educational context. The article discusses how social software  can be used to support a social constructivist approach to e-learning, or more  specifically, how social software can support self-governed, problem-based  and collaborative activities.
• The question of organizing  e-learning tools involves the problem of integration vs. separation.  On the one hand, it is possible to integrate different tools in a single stand-alone  system, a learning management system, also called virtual learning environments  or e-learning systems (such systems include Blackboard, WebCT, Moodle). On  the other hand, tools can be separated in a number of distributed and independent  applications used for different purposes.
• "[...] networked tools that support and encourage individuals to learn  together while retaining individual control over their time, space, presence,  activity, identity and relationship."
    (Anderson 2005a, p. 4)
• social software is a very difficult concept to define.
• A weblog
• Social bookmarking tools can also support relations between people.
• Finally, wikis can be catalogued as social software tools.
• According to a social constructivist approach, learning is considered  a social and active process (Vygotsky, 1978; Brown,  Collins & Duguid, 1989; Jonassen, 2000).  Problem-based activities describe a learning process in which students are  directed at solving a problem. It is important to a social constructivist approach  that a student tries to solve the problem him- or herself. In other words,  students should direct their own problem-solving process.
• This conception of a learning process means  that it is not possible to structure or pre-determine the students' activities  in a learning process – the activities must develop on the basis of the  student's own problem-solving.

  • which opposit to VLE's feature
• Surrounding the  student are different tools and resources which support the student's problem-solving  process.
• However, self-governed and problem-based  activities are not very well supported by LMS.
• LMS are to a large extent developed  for the management and delivery of learning – and not for self-governed  activities of students.
• Collaborative personal tools are owned and controlled by students working  together in groups.
• Personal tools are defined as tools owned and controlled by students. They  are used by students for various kinds of construction and reflection; for  instance, writing, presenting, drawing or programming. T
• • networks between people working collaboratively,
   
  • networks between people sharing a context, and
   
  • networks between people sharing a field of interest.
• Use of personal tools combined with social networks form the basis of an individualization  or personalization of the web (Downes, 2004b).  On the basis of a personal page, a student can use social software to navigate  the web to find resources
• However, it would be extremely difficult  for students to navigate the vast amount of resources.
• and people that can help solve the problem.
• Instead, it is important to support  students' independent work and actively facilitate relations between collaborating  students and also between students and teachers connected to the same course.

20 more annotations...

• they publish websites, online, starting in Week 2 of the semester, revising and adding to their project all semester, long and reading and commenting on each other’s work.
• step by step, with lots of revision, so even students who find writing difficult create good work
• Loosely coupled teaching could also apply to content - e.g. pulling in RSS feeds from a variety of sources.
• an English teacher uses blogs and wikis.
• have a class that combines Pageflakes, google writer and our own wiki.
• Problem is conglomerating these tools into a “loosely coupled” format, as you put it so well, may be well-suited for higher order learning, but not when students need fairly basic and structured information. My biggest fear is that for the introductory-level students that I teach the static and background noise of such an experience will inhibit their learning and application, which may under-prepare them for the next courses in the sequence.

4 more annotations...