At the end of 2006, Time magazine’s Person of the Year was ‘You'. The cover showed a picture of a computer with an actual mirror in place of the screen, reflecting not only the face of the reader, but also the idea that 2006 was the beginning of the new improved Web. Commonly known as Web 2.0, this second generation of web-based services and software is characterized by its user-generated content and its capacity for facilitating collaboration and sharing between users. In the past we were primarily consumers of information but Web 2.0 allows us to also be producers of information using tools such as blogs, wikis, podcasts, and media sharing.
Although it's technically a marketing tool, this video gives a quick explanation of Web 2.0:
Our tech-savvy students, who have never known life without the Internet, use these new tools daily, but mostly outside of school. The Partnership for 21st Century Skills has stated, “Today’s education system faces irrelevance unless we bridge the gap between how students live and how they learn.” When students use 21st Century technologies, they are able to meet their intrinsic needs to form communities, ask questions, and earn audience and attention. Today's students will spend their adult lives in a multitasking, technology-driven, diverse world, and they must arrive equipped to do so.
How can we as educators harness the power of these new technologies to engage and motivate students in the classroom? And how can students effectively use the tools to create, communicate, collaborate?
Discovery Resources
For more information on what Web 2.0 is and why educators need to know more about it, view the following videos and read the following articles:
How the Web is changing...
How the world is changing...
How students are changing...
"A Day in the Life of Web 2.0" by David Warlick. This article gives an excellent description of the application of Web 2.0 tools in a middle school setting.
Student Inquiry and Web 2.0 by Pam Berger. This article discusses the benefits of utilizing Web 2.0 tools and explains how Web 2.0 can support quality teaching and learning practices.
Discovery Exercises
To complete Thing 2, you must:
A. Respond to the Discovery Resources
A. Reflect - Blog Prompt for Thing 2
Write a new post on your blog. Remember to title your post "Thing 2." For a refresher on blog posting guidelines, click here. Remember-you need not answer EVERY question; these are just provided to jump-start your thinking!
- What are your initial reactions to the Discovery Resources? What surprised you? What interested you? What discouraged you? What do you hope to learn more about?
- How might you be able to use Web 2.0 tools to engage today's "digital learners?"
- How do the Discovery Resources relate to the use of technology in your educational setting?
- What role can or will Web 2.0 play in 21st Century Learning?
- How might you be able to use these tools to support your own learning?
- Berger lists, among the characteristics of Web 2.0, its power to "harness collective intelligence" and to foster collaboration. How will these characterstics change the way students learn? Interact? Undergo assessment?
- Is a school environment like the one in "A Day in the Life of Web 2.0" possible? What obstacles do you foresee preventing this type of technology use in an educational setting?
Bonus: Digital Natives
How much of a role does technology play in our students' lives, and what does that mean for them? Take some time to explore these articles and to think about the issues they raise:
My own children which are 12 and 15 text often and so do all their friends. They each have laptops. i would like to do activites with cell phones.
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