Web2.

0 Theory, Practice, and Application in

the Classroom

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Brought To You By:
Victor Bradley
Interdisciplinary Studies
7th Grade
Sedro-Woolley, WA

veb2k5@ yahoo.com

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 What Role Technology in Public Schools?
 

Schools and school districts across the nation are continually trying
to define the place of technology within education and the daunting
question of how to properly invest in technology to empower student
learning. Emerging technology like Web2.0 may lead the way with
its emphasis on open architecture, interactive applications, integrated
platforms, low cost, and low maintenance—everything is online and
increasingly integrated and cross-functional. For the first time, the
prospects exist that even poor districts can invest in integrated
systems rooted on the web that do not demand consistent upgrades
and costly proprietary software, large investments in hardware, or
complex user maintained networks to achieve powerful
collaboration, communication, and learning online.

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 Digital Natives: the Tech Savvy Young

Our young are tech savvy and their lives are engrained in
technology barely dreamed of ten years ago. This digital generation
is defined by their use of technology which many wear like a second
skin immersed in digital worlds of gaming, virtual reality,
simulations, and the creation of data and media as diverse as
MySpace, U-Tube, Video Streaming, Journal Live, and Blogger.
Some experts contend students now learn and perceive the world
differently for their whole lives have been shaped, defined, and
transformed by ever changing technology. In his provocative essay:
Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, Marc Prensky argues our
education systems simply are not prepared to teach the digital
generation:

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 Collaborate, Communicate

Network, Create

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Inquire, Connect! 8
 “It is amazing to me how in all the hoopla and debate these days
about the decline of education in the US we ignore the most
fundamental of its causes. Our students have changed radically.
Today’s students are no longer the people our educational system
was designed to teach. Today’s students have not just changed
incrementally from those of the past, nor simply changed their slang,
clothes, body adornments, or styles, as has happened between
generations previously. A really big discontinuity has taken place.
One might even call it a “singularity” – an event which changes
things so fundamentally that there is absolutely no going back. This
so-called “singularity” is the arrival and rapid dissemination of
digital technology in the last decades of the 20th century.”
(Prensky, 2001)

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 Empowering Students to Find Their Own Way

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Prensky characterizes youth whose lives are defined by
technology as digital natives. Their comfort zone, their sense of
play, their ways of communicating and learning (even their
identities) are deeply entwined in technology. Their teachers
and professors’ lives, however, are frequently defined by
traditional ways of learning, low tech, and indifference to
technological change and digital learning—what Prensky calls
digital immigrants. Digital immigrants are often well versed in
one technology application or another, but their lives and
passions are not defined by technology or change so common to
the digital natives, our young.

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As Educators, What is Our Mission?

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 What Digital Natives Have to Say About Technology in Their
Lives (At the Moment)
 
Project Tomorrow’s Snapshot of Selected National Findings from K-12 Students,
has provided some fascinating perspectives on the use of technology by K12
students the last ten years. In their 2006 report only one fourth of the students found
online safety and privacy major concerns about using technology compared to 2/3
of their parents and teachers. Conversely, the top concerns for students were: 1)
spam, 2) digital access equity, and 3) online cheating—the kids are all right! When
the students were asked what they would change about technology use and
implementation at school the top two requests were: 1) relax school rules about
email, instant messaging, cell phone, and online use, and 2) provide students with
laptops to use at school and home. (2006) The disparity of priorities and use
patterns grow even more disparate when considering the role of technology in the
classroom as perceived by students, and then their teachers. What really illustrates
this disparity most dramatically is the level, access, and sophistication of
technology used at home by many students compared to what is available and used
most often at school.

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 The Widening Technology Gap Between Educators and Their
Students
The gaps between students’ and faculty members’ use of technology
have widened. The digital divide focused on access and socio-
economics just ten years ago, but today we see a widening divide
between parent and child, teacher and learner, and employer and
employee. In the mid-1990s, most students did not own a personal
computer, they used single-function technologies (phones, cameras,
audio and video players), they had sporadic and limited access to the
Internet, they may have used a course management system in very
limited ways, and although they communicated with e-mail, neither
instant messaging (Iming) nor text-messaging was common. Today,
most students own a computer, use multifunction mobile technologies,
have ubiquitous access to the Internet, regularly use course management
systems for coursework, and incessantly IM and text-message (e-mail is
passé). (McGee & Diaz, 2007)
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 Does Our Lack of Vision

Imprison Our Student’s Future?

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 What Kinds of Knowledge and Skills Do Digital Natives Need
Now and for the Future?
 
Unfortunately, there is no consensus about what skills and types of
learning will serve students best in the new millennium or how best
to prepare them for the changing workplace. A good case can be
made, however, that the skills that students will find most useful
and adaptive in terms of further education and entering the
workplace will include significant competencies in problem
solving, higher level thinking skills, critical analysis of information,
flexible and discursive communication skills, and the ability to
collaborate effectively within groups. All these skills are provided
in dynamic ways by various Web2.0 applications that are readily
available and affordable, if not free. Ken Kay and Margaret Honey
provide a good overview of the kind of skills our youth really need
to master in the 21st Century:
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•Communicate Effectively: Students must have a range of skills to express
themselves not only through paper and pencil, but also audio, video,
animation, design software as well as a host of other interactive environments
(e-mail, Web sites, message boards, blogs, podcasts, streaming media, etc.).
•Analyze and Interpret Data: Students must have the ability to crunch,
compare, and choose among the glut of data now available in Web-based and
other electronic formats.
•Understand Computational Modeling: Students must posses an understanding
of the power, limitations, and underlying assumptions of various data
representation systems, such as computational models and simulations, which
are increasingly driving a wide-range of disciplines.
•Manage and Prioritize Tasks: Students must be able to mange the multi-tasking,
selection, and prioritizing across technology applications that allow them to
move fluidly among teams, assignments and communities of practice.
•Engage in Problem Solving: Students must have an understanding of how to
apply what they know and can do to new situations.
•Ensure Security and Safety: Students must know and use strategies to
acknowledge, identify, and negotiate 21st century risks. (2005)

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 Case Study: Why One School District Resists Implementing Web2.0 Learning

The first thing we need to do with students and the power of online networking and collaboration
is trust their instincts to do the right thing. I had less trouble with porn, flaming, and sabotage
without filters where responsibility was actively taught then with filters. My colleague and I are
experimenting with in-house, server based wikis for two primary reasons: 1) we could effectively
control the content and use patterns with active monitoring ourselves, and 2) we could quickly pull
the plug if something went drastically wrong with student use to minimize damage and protect our
backs. Our school had an especially Machiavellian eighth grade last year in terms of tech use, and
as a result, the school district looks at Web2.0 as nothing but headaches and security risks instead
of the powerful learning potential its tools present education. There are schools all over the nation,
including elementary schools, who use Web2.0 with both power and security. Ironically my
students this year in 7th and 8th grade are by nature responsible users of technology and the logical
first classes to introduce the successful use of Web2.0 to the entire school district. At the moment,
however, the network specialists and district leaders are stonewalling our efforts because they
think providing students with G-mail will subvert district security. Educating administrators,
showing the many schools that already successfully use Web2.0, and making security an ongoing
dialog and collaborative task between parents, students, teachers, administrators, and network
specialist who keep it running is the way to go to harness the potential of Web2.0. If we don’t
embrace this imperative, many experts think public education will become more and more
marginal in students lives and the way they learn in the 21 st century.

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 Does Sanitizing Our Technology at School Protect
Our Children or Create A Fortress of Ignorance?

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 Why Web2.0 is the Digital Platform to Teach Digital Natives
 
“Learning in almost any subject today means not only learning the
concepts within that area, but also how to use technologies in
theendeavor… Thus, the traditional lines between learning about
technology and learning through technology are beginning to blur.”
(Bruce and Levin, 1997)
 
[Ultimately, the value of Web2.0 style] learning is its link to the
concept of life-long learning.  We are moving from formal, rigid
learning into an environment of informal, connection-based, network-
creating learning…Knowing is no longer a destination. Knowing is a
process of walking in varying degrees of alignment with a dynamic
environment.” Gone are the days of “this is what it is” (Siemens,
2005)

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How do we teach digital natives with learning at school that is
relevant and challenging? Learning that empowers their many
existing technological strengths—with Web2.0. Here integrated
applications consistently emphasize the four basic powers and uses
of interactive media where students learn the power of inquiry,
communicating, constructing, and self-expression. (Bruce and
Levin, 1997). Perhaps educators will finally have the interactive
tools to make classroom instruction truly student centered. In an
article on technology integration, a curriculum technology
coordinator, Brenda Dyck articulates what she sees as the keys to
integrating technology successfully in the classroom:
1) information users need to become knowledge creators, 2)
individual knowledge acquisition needs to tap into community,
regional, and global collaboration, 3) there’s power in connecting
learning groups for mutual benefit and powerful learning.
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 Learning that Connects Technology to Students’ Lives and Capabilities

Learning using Web2.0 is a function of creating connections, foraging for needed

knowledge, and “plugging in” to learning sources (Siemens, 2003), rather than
being taught by a sage on the stage, with static tools (textbooks and lectures)
where knowledge and learning is quantified by objective testing and literally
“possessed”. Finding information, making connections, integrating applications,
and discovery learning are paramount in Web2.0 learning. The focus of learning
using Web2.0 tools is the student and the learning process is constructing
knowledge that constantly changes, adapts, and re-defines itself. Students engage
Web2.0 in fluid platforms where change is a given, communicating is constant
and often occurring at many different levels, and multi-tasking is a given. Users
combine, blend, blog, wiki, podcast, edit, embed and ping seamlessly in ways
digital immigrants find inscrutable and not just a bit threatening. How can
learning be so much fun, and what is with all that noise about?

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The essential role and challenge for teachers is not the sage on the stage, but
to provide learners with the tools, opportunities, and levels of interaction
where students can define their own learning. Connecting learners and
creating dynamic networks is basic to Web2.0 applications where students are
connected to each other, their community, their parents, their world. This level
of interaction ensures high motivation and commitment to genuine learning.
George Siemens has developed what I consider the best model for theory to
practice when implementing Web2.0 within classroom instruction. He calls
this theory of using Web2.0 to teach students to learn, connectivism. Siemens
notes perceptively how Web2.0 learning changes the dynamic within the
classroom learning process and seriously redefines what the teacher sees as
learning and the nature of knowledge to be transmitted to students:

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 Are we teaching students for their future or our past?

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•Learning and knowledge rests in diversity of opinions.
•Learning is a process of connecting specialized nodes or
information sources.
•Learning may reside in non-human appliances.
•Capacity to know more is more critical than what is currently
known. “Know where” replaces “know what” and “know how”.
•Nurturing and maintaining connections is needed to facilitate
continual learning.
•Ability to see connections between fields, ideas, and concepts is a
core skill.
•Currency (accurate, up-to-date knowledge) is the intent of all
connectivist learning activities.
•Decision-making is itself a learning process. Choosing what to learn
and the meaning of incoming information is seen through the lens
of a shifting reality. While there is a right answer now, it may be
wrong tomorrow due to alterations in the information climate
affecting the decision.
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George Siemens asks another essential question for learning
in the 21st Century, it seems to me:
 
If course-based learning is out of date for today’s learner, what
is the alternative? The answer can be found in learning
ecologies and networks – structures that emulate continual
learning. John Seely Brown (2002) defines a learning ecology
as “an open, complex, adaptive system comprising elements
that are dynamic and interdependent”.

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Learning Ecologies Possess Numerous Components:
   Tool-rich - many opportunities for users to dialogue and
connect.
   Consistency and time. New communities, projects and ideas
start with much hype and promotion, and then slowly fade. To
create a knowledge sharing ecology, participants need to see a
consistently evolving environment.

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 Learning Ecologies Part II
  Trust. High, social contact (face to face or online) is needed to foster a
sense of trust and comfort. Secure and safe environments are critical for
trust to develop.
   Simplicity. Other characteristics need to be balanced with the need for
simplicity. Great ideas fail because of complexity. Simple, social
approaches work most effectively. The selection of tools and the creation
of the community structure should reflect this need for simplicity.
   Decentralized, fostered, connected; as compared to centralized, managed,
and isolated.
• High tolerance for experimentation and failure

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Web 2.0 and Their Real World Applications in the Classroom

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 The discussion up to this point has examined the theory
and application of emergent technologies in the
education of our young. Best practices emphasize
Web2.0 applications, constructivist practices, student
centered learning, interactive communication, and
collaborative networks embracing peers, community,
and outreach to the world. The concluding part of this
essay shifts focus to analyze how Web2.0 provides an
amazing array of ever evolving tools and methods
addressing the challenges of teaching digital natives—
innovative technology applied to tasks both great and
small.

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How Do We Deal Effectively With Emerging Technologies?

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http://www.writeboard.com/

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Writeboard is a free collaborative web-based writing program that lets users
collaborate with other writers, saves different versions of documents which can
be easily accessed, and allows peer editing in powerful ways. I like the way
writers can compare different versions from rough drafts to peer edits to final
drafts. The service is free but accessing the site as a useful tool means the
teacher needs to keep on top of filing and global organization and passwords.
What they really want the user to do is to buy their organizing tool Backpacking
software that will do this for you. Writeboard has the potential to be a powerful
platform in which English teachers could instruct editing and revision in real
world ways. Having multiple audiences and multiple vehicles for feedback just
reinforce the fundamental principles that writing can always be improved, and
the more audiences and feedback a writer gets the better the writing will be. I
have not used the application enough to know if it is more user friendly than
blogging. I do like the fact its focus is on writing, sharing, revising, and
comparing—the fundamentals of writing. Having no distractions like RSS feeds,
links to wikis, podcasts, and websites, appeals to this writing teacher. The real
question here, which remains unanswered so far, is this tool manageable with a
class of 25 writers?

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Storage is a perpetual problem when teaching tech on a shoestring. Wikis
and blogs give you plenty of space, but the interface is often clumsy,
hyperactive, and not well organized. Here is a slick resource that gives you
tons of free or cheap storage which can be organized in flexible ways. With
the teacher as the moderator and manager, this author thinks this may be
the solution to the archival and storage needs that interactive media
entails with the possible exception of the mega files of videos. According
to reviews the service is fast, reliable, secure and cheep—how can you beat
those qualities.
 
http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html?node=16427261
http://jungledisk.com/

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Creative Data
Storage!

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If we want students to be creators of data and meaningful content as a
cornerstone of their learning, we need to teach them about the ethics of
using information and data. A great place to start is with images. Flikr
and Wikimedia Creative Commons both teach students how
intellectual and proprietary content are shared online and within
scholarship in a variety of ways. Flikr provides ten ways images can be
shared online via Creative Commons protocols. Students need to learn
both the issues and the protocols for using someone else’s content
responsibly and with integrity. The best online source for stock images
is stock.xchng vi, http://www.sxc.hu/. Of course with that URL our
school filter blocks access to the site preventing a closer look about how
useful it might be for both sources of images and the teaching of
responsible use with other people’s media. I would check out all three
sources for image resources and their utility for teaching responsible
use.

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 Web 2.0 is How Digital Natives Learn

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 Blogs With Style

I really dislike the interface and the lack of user friendly

organizational features in most blogs. Most veteran bloggers think
this is just fretting over incidentals; that the content is what really
counts while useability and ease of navigation are only problems
with newbies. Most bloggers value what capabilities and other
applications are within the blogger tool and the quality of the
content. Well that said, I was glad to see wordpress.com emerge
because I think its interface is user friendly, its structure well
organized, and the style aesthetically pleasing. It may not have all
the gizmos and special features the hardcores want but I really
enjoy the clean interface. This is where my professional blog will
be.

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 Finding Perspective and the Best of Web2.0

http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/recommended/index.html

If you are looking to find the best applications of emerging technology and
Web2.0, The Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies is a great
resource. Each year the center asks for user submitted lists of the top ten
tools in practitioners’ lives. The lists include brief annotations of the best
applications for the year and how they work in the real world from a diverse
cross section of disciplines, grade levels, and expertise. When I want to
check out what the latest tools are, or find a specific application to fit a
specific instructional need I come here. My favorite guru for tech
applications in the real world is an ELL teacher from Texas, Larry Ferlazzo
—a great source for language arts teachers:

http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/recommended/larryferlazzo.html
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 Tech In Too Many Schools

Is Like Watching
Black & White TV

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Helen Barrett has done seminal work on how to integrate digital portfolios
in the classroom and daily instruction. Below is her workup on how an
integrated system of Web2.0 style learning would work within the
universe of Google Applications. This provides one possible and
provocative answer to yet another essential question about Web2.0
learning. How does a teacher provide an adaptable, student friendly,
effective, reliable integration of Web2.0 tools? One that would empower
student learning in the four basic areas of multimedia instruction: self
expression, the creation of content, communication, and collaboration?
Take a good look at the schematic and notice how many options there are
to communicate, create content, and to collaborate. And of course the
applications are all free and powered by the Google Juggernaut—which
means they will probably be regularly upgraded and be around for a good
long time for use by all those poor rural school districts like mine.

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http://electronicportfolios.org/google/index.html

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 http://electronicportfolios.org/web20
portfolios.html
 
Ms. Barret has gone to the extraordinary lengths of creating example portfolios in
many of the most popular and most useful application in the Web2.0 universe. I
was amazed how comprehensive and instructive this resource turned out to be for
a teacher who really believes in the powers of portfolios and the desire to embed
portfolios with Web2.0 applications. If you’re interested in the power of
portfolios, Helen Barrett is the place to start.
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http://electronicportfolios.org/
 

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In conclusion, these are but a few of the whole universe of Web2.0

applications that stand to revolutionize both teaching and learning.
The intention is not to be inclusive here but to provide a provocative
glimpse of constructivist, student centered learning using Web2.0
platforms and applications. There are ways to harness the power of
Web2.0; the future of our students demand that we digital
immigrants embrace this potential and run with it. The future is not
for us, but for our students—so let’s get to work.

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Consuming culture is never as rewarding
as producing it. 
Mihalyi Czikszentmihalyi, Creativity (1996)

veb2k5@yahoo.com

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 References

Brown, J. S., (n.d.). Learning in the digital age. Retrieved on January 30, 2008 from
http://www.johnseelybrown.com/learning_in_digital_age-aspen.pdf

Dyck, B. (2004). Four principles for true technology integration.

Retrieved February 1, 2008, from
http://www.microsoft.com/education/fourprinciples.mspx

Kay, K. & Honey, M. (n.d.). Beyond technology competency:

A vision of ICT literacy to prepare students for the 21 st century,
The Institute for the Advancement of Emerging Technologies in Education.
Charleston, W.V.: Evantia

Mcgee, P. & Diaz, V. (2007, September/October). Wikis and podcasts and blogs!
Oh, my! What is a faculty member supposed to do?
Educause Review. Retrieved February 1, 2008, from
http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERM0751.pdf

Prensky, M. (2001, October). Digital natives, digital immigrants.

Retrieved February 1, 2008, from
http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,
%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf 

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 Project Tomorrow, (2006). Speak up 2006: Snapshot of selected
national findings from K-12. Retrieved February 1, 2008, from
http://www.tomorrow.org/docs/Speak%20Up
%202006%20National%20Snapshot_K-12%20Students.pdf
Siemens, G. (2003, October 17). Re: Learning ecology,
communities, and networks: Extending the classroom. Message
posted to
http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/learning_communities.htm
Siemens, G. (2005, July 12). Re Learning development cycle:
Bridging learning design and modern knowledge needs. Message
posted to http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/ldc.htm
Siemens, G. (2005, Nov). Connectivism: Learning as network-
creation. ASCD: Learning Circuits. Retrieved January 30, 2008,
from http://www.learningcircuits.org/2005/nov2005/seimens.htm

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