Web+2.0--Home,+School,+Work

**Web 2.0 **

In simple terms, Web 2.0 has become known as the read/write web. As mentioned in the history section, no longer is the internet a passive experience from which a user observes information. With the advent of Web 2.0, the user now has an active role in the creation and content of information on the web. A user may now use her knowledge to add to an encyclopedia entry on Wikipedia. She may also post a review of a book that she as read on Amazon.com. She can post pictures, she can write a blog, she can work together with friends in Japan using a wiki while she sits at a kitchen table in Iowa City, Iowa. No longer is the information on the web static, allowing us merely to read what is there. Instead, we can write additions and changes to, support and refutation of, and examples and illustrations for the existing information: therefore the read/write web.

This read/write we has found today's students in a much different place than their older brothers and sisters were just ten years ago. According to the [|U.S. Census Bureau], Internet access has tripled in homes over the last ten years. Too, many students have cell phones and iPods with as much functionality as many computers. What this means is that most of our students have 24 hour access to this read/write web at home or in the palm of their hands. At the very least they have access at school, library, or after school clubs, and the fact that they have access has drastically changed the way they get information:
 * //How does this affect K-12 education?//**

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These two factors, access and the ability to contribute, have not been lost on our students. Many have taken advantage of social network sites MySpace and Facebook, flickr, Wordpress, wikipedia, etc. They contribute and they converse online. They find value in what their friends (or 'friends') say, versus what an authority says. They don't wade through stacks of books, anymore. They click through hyperlinks while seated at a Starbucks. Using [|Nicholas Carr's metaphor], our kids have grown up jet-skiing across the surface of information. In the classroom, then, it makes no sense that we expect our students to sit quietly on an anchored boat appreciating the surface of the water for all it contains below, even though they can't see it. However, state standards and high stakes testing have asked educators to do just that: to ask our students to sit, listen, and absorb while we fill them with the information that the state has deemed required.

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The state of education has been shaken by [|NCLB's requirement] that 100% of students in Illinois meet AYP by the year 2014 in Math and Reading. Therefore schools are scrambling to ensure that students meet the [|'meager minimum'] in order to stay in the good graces of government funding, a not so simple task in many schools with high mobility, lower-income, and racially and culturally diverse students. In preparation for testing, this results in many schools resorting to [|skill and drill], instead of higher order thinking skills that are necessarily in order for our students to become capable, thinking citizens in our society.

Is there any way that we can enforce basic skills in our students while promoting higher order thinking without asking them to sit in rows and listen? Is it possible to let our students use their Facebook accounts to learn? While it's not the only answer, Web 2.0 provides educators with pedagogically sound media for the changing world of education. As the read/write web, Web 2.0 provides students with the much needed opportunity to write their thoughts into their own education.

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Educators  must remain up to date with current trends in educational philosophy, educational practices, and current tips and tricks of the trade. Even beyond the technology integrating taking place in schools there are also other changes in educational practices. For a teacher to keep up with this it requires more than a few district sponsored training sessions throughout the year. This is where informal learning is invaluable and web 2.0 makes this possible. 
 * //Web 2.0 and informal learning//** 

There are two main ways that we learn to keep up with our profession. One is to join conversations with other teachers about teaching and the other is to reflect in your individual performance.

Joining the conversation in a web 2.0 world starts with an RSS feeder. There are hundreds and perhaps thousands of teachers who have made a habit of discussing what they are doing in their classroom in a blog. Using an RSS feeder like Google Reader or Feed Burner lets an educator decide who or what topic they would like to follow and then get new postings sent to their feeder as they are posted. Besides the individual bloggers there are professional organizations who have their own writers and who ask well known educational bloggers to write for them.  In this situation the teacher is able to listen to the conversation of other teachers who are teaching the same subject or grade from around the globe. They can read the posts, comment on the posts, and read the comments on the post, which eventually become a conversation on the topics.

Reflecting is a key component to betterment in any profession. What better way to reflect than to write about your experiences in a blog? Using a blog as a teacher to write about experiences good and bad in a classroom allows you to properly reflect on your skill. This is also a good way to start conversations with other teachers who may be reading the blog and going through similar situation.  Web 2.0 makes these conversations work. It may seem crazy to try to read thousands of other teachers blog posts and comments but that is not necessary. The structure allows you to search out the teachers and conversations that only pertain to you. Oftentimes teachers are the only one in a building teaching a specific topic to a specific level. World wide there are many of those people and web 2.0 allows them to talk about it. 

A new player in web 2.0 is Twitter. Twitter is a microblogging platform that restricts post to 140 characters. The posts are quick and generally are about a simple topic, a link to a page, or an answer to a question. In a strong Twitter network a teacher can find out what current trends are, ask questions and get feedback, or keep in touch with other similar educators across the globe.

media type="youtube" key="NlETGJ0mnno" height="265" width="320"  In October 2008, Britannica Blog invited experts on Web 2.0 in education to argue the merits and downfalls of using Web 2.0 in schools. In his essay “//[|Moving Toward Web 2.0 in K-12 Education]//" Steve Hargadon outlines 11 reasons why the read/write web is good for students (though his focus is on formal education, the benefits apply to informal learning situations as well):
 * //Why Web 2.0 is good for all learning//**


 * 1. Engagement.** "Because the engagement of Web 2.0 is in the act of content creation, and seems to exist independent of the particular program being used or even of being in a formal learning environment, this claim seems not only reasonable but compelling."

The basic act of contributing something, of authoring something and posting it creates engagement. When we share with friends and family, we want to know how helpful we are so we ask. When we give someone our phone number, we wait for him or her to call. When we turn in an assignment, we want to know how we did. Web 2.0 is no different: When posting a review David Sedaris' most recent collection of essays on amazon.com, for example, a user will likely be inclined to see how helpful it is to others. Or when posting an entry on wikipedia, a user will likely be inclined to see if it is changed, amended, or even removed.

In formal education, using collaborative tools like wikis or social tools such as Moodle as a forum for summer reading assignments is an excellent way to promote engagement. Instead of cramming an essay or double entry journal into the night or two before school starts, students instead spend 10 minutes here and there over the course of the entire summer, engaging with other students, sharing insights, and most importantly, thinking. Success rate for this page's authors has been over 85 percent for three years in a row.


 * 2. Authenticity.** "Whether it is the peer audience in school which keeps their Web 2.0 programs within the “walled garden” of the school network, or it is publishing for the world, both the work and the audience are authentic."

In the classroom, the authors of this wiki have noticed increased motivation from students knowing that their work will be posted for all to see. They are aware that their writing is no longer a private exchange between the teacher and student, but instead an authentic piece of writing that will be available for the whole world to see.


 * 3. Participation.** "[S]tudents (and teachers!) can find specific intellectual paths to tread where they are able to participate, say, as an historian and not as someone preparing to be an historian. A student can write a report on an historical figure, or a scientific theory, and both publish that to the web and also participate in meaningful ways with other students and adults interested in the same topic."

Participation is evident in many areas of the web, especially in what Nicholas Burbules calls 'self-educating communities.' He defines these communities in saying "that one of their most striking features, regardless of the subject matter they share in common...is an overt commitment to sharing information, initiating newcomers, and extending their collective knowledge through such processes as shared problem-solving, experimentation, and independent inquiry" (Burbules). Since Web 2.0 makes it possible for every group, every niche, and every cause to make a common space, there will be a place to go to both read and write knowledge onto the web. For example fans of interactive fiction can learn how to code a certain event from existing information while at the same time adding to a section based on their existing knowledge. Also, people who have had similar life experiences can find a place to garner and share information about how they have handled the situation.


 * 4. Openness and Access to Information. ** "Web 2.0 is making obsolete many of the restrictions on access to information that were intended to protect the rights of creators, but instead mostly inhibited learning by others...The ability to “look something up” or to learn something new has never been greater."

As mentioned in item 3, there is a home for every piece of information in the world, online. If that home has not already been created, it takes less than 3 minutes to set up an account with any number of web 2.0 tools and create a place for that information to exist and expand. This project is a perfect example, where a group has come together to create a collective of information on web 2.0 in education.


 * 5. Collaboration.** "In the world of Web 2.0, collaboration is not only king, but it can be seen and assessed–look at the history page of a wiki, for example, or the linked list of contributed comments on the personal profile page of a social network."

Referencing this wiki again, we are 7 members spread across the world right now, and yet we are able to work together, help one-another, and add to one another's thoughts and ideas. Though we all work with excellent colleagues in excellent schools, there is no denying the fact that the ability to collaborate across this much distance is an invaluable opportunity to grow as learners and as professionals. Additionally, our work is now public, so anyone else who stumbles across this site will be able to add her or his own expertise to our collective.

In a high school special education classroom, collaboration is similar to what we (seven graduate students) are doing here. In a self-contained English classroom, students are assigned partner projects and are taught how to set up [|Google Docs] accounts. With the use of Google Docs, each student is able to access and edit the paper and presentation (similar to a PowerPoint presentation), all while the teacher has access and editing rights. These students are able to work on their project together without physically being near each other and their teacher is able to provide immediate feedback directly on the document.


 * 6. Creativity.** "A regular student can write, film, and edit a video which then can be uploaded to YouTube and potentially seen by more of an audience than some commercial films actually garner.**"

The incredible amount of free software available with Web 2.0 has made it so easy to make film and audio productions with minimal time and expertise. When the author was in college, he made a three minute film that required countless hours cooped up in a tiny lab with hundreds of thousands of dollars of video editing equipment. Just one month ago, the same author helped a student edit a three minute film with just a laptop computer and some free software. There has been no better time to ask our students to dust off their right brains and enjoy the opportunities for creativity.

7. Passionate Interest and Personal Expression.** "Where the resume and the degrees have been our short-cut indicators of abilities and accomplishments, the personal body of work now contained and hopefully organized on the Web gives everyone who wants it the the opportunity for an expression of personal interest and achievement."

As high school students are asked to do more and more for acceptance into college and the work force, the web has become a perfect, organic place for students to keep track of their accomplishments.


 * 8. Discussion.** "One of the great features of Web 2.0 is the discussion forum, which provides an environment for learning how to actually talk about things."

When students are asked to post something in a public forum wherein their posts will exist for years to come, they are forced to think carefully about what they post. The flippant comments made in class don't have the same effect in print; they usually are passed over and soon forgotten. It is the innovative comments that explore a subject thoroughly which are promote discussion and are talked about both in and out of class.


 * 9. Asynchronous Contribution.** "The ability to contribute to discussions after class, or from home, provides a much broader opportunity for participation that the traditional class discussion. Students with different contribution styles, or who process information over time, are now more participative."

The time to rehearse an answer before posting is an excellent opportunity for all types of learning. There is certainly something hugely important about the ability to answer quickly and coherently during discussion with others. However, as someone who is learning something, the time to rehearse is invaluable: it allows one to think critically about the words he is about to say or type; it allows him to be creative in a response; it allows him to seek collaboration from others; etc. As a result, asking high school students to participate in asynchronous discussion allows a wider variety of students to join the discussion.


 * 10. Proactivity.** "Web 2.0 inherently rewards the proactive learner and contributor."

There is a positive cycle on web 2.0. The more a user researches on the web, the more information she can contribute back to the web. The more she contributes, the more ethos she creates. The more ethos she creates, the more people will read what she contributes and share more research with her.


 * 11. Critical Thinking. ** "The vast amount of data on the Web requires more critical thinking than [ever before]."

It has never been more important to be able to evaluate which information is credible and which is not. Everyone is able to publish online in a matter of minutes, whether or not they are an authority of their subject matter. They may well be, and their contribution might be just the information that a user is searching for. On the other hand, they may not have a clue, and therefore taking their words at face value can weaken a users understanding of an issue as well as her or his credibility. Both in formal and informal learning situations, this necessitates an education that focuses on critical thinking skills more than was needed when the majority of information was found in already credible sources like encyclopedias and national magazines.

<span style="font-size: 90%; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;"> **<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Works Cited on this Page: ** Burbules, N. C. Self-Educating Communities: Collaboration and Learning through the Internet.

Read about web 2.0 in action with David Warlick's [|A Day in the Life of Web 2.0]
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Suggestions for Further Reading: **