Web 2.0 Learning Environments in Distance Learning

1
Chapter 7

• Web 2.0 Learning Environments in Distance
  Learning

2
Chapter Outline

• Mistaken Perceptions
• The Net Generation
• Current Use of Course Management System Software
• Web 2.0 Disrupts Distance Learning
• Constructs for Web 2.0 Learning Environments
• Cognitive Dimension
• Social Dimension
• Networking Dimension
• Integration Dimension
• Collaboration
• Community
• District Structure and Processes
• Architecture of Learning
• Authority Destructions
• Personal Learning Space
• The Strengths of Web 2.0 Tools
• Planning Personal Learning Space
• Professional Development

3
Chapter Questions

• What are the key characteristics leaders need to
  have when integrating Web 2.0 tools to support
  learning?
• What are the products to deliver that leaders
  need to understand (i.e., how might teachers be
  trained so they understand correctly that online
  learning
• technology is to deliver knowledge and skills,
  not just content)?
• How can leaders encourage teachers and students
  to build differentiation/personalized learning?

4
Chapter Questions, cont

• How can leaders provide effective training on a
  regular basis to assist teachers with integrating
  different Web 2.0 tools that support their
  learning
• and/or their work?
• How can leaders facilitate a learning community
  and community learningthat is, understanding,
  knowledge, or learning that grows beyond
  individual members of a communityto aggregate
  collective intelligence via social networking and
  connecting?

5
Disruptive Innovation

• The theory of disruptive innovation, an
  innovation that, by its implementation, disrupts
  the status quo. The theory of disruption can
  provide researchers, practitioners, and
  policymakers with a new perspective on
  increasingly effective, affordable, and
  accessible educational opportunities in our
  society.

6
The Net Generation

• The extent of technology use by students,
  particularly by the net generationpeople born
  after 1980, suggesting that these students
  fundamentally differ from previous generations in
  the way they process information, communicate,
  and, learnis a critical issue in distance
  learningThese students prefer to receive
  information quickly and are adept at processing
  information, multitasking, and using
  multiple/multimodal communication channels to
  access information and communicate with friends
  and tutors.

7
Web 2.0

• Web 2.0 technologies support, encourage, and
  provide Web space for content published by the
  user rather than the Web site designer or
  developer, disrupt current distance learning
  technologyCurrent distance learning technology
  is essentially more individualistic and objective
  while the philosophies inherent in Web 2.0
  technology are more social and subjective.

8
Constructs for Web 2.0 Learning Environments

• Cognitive Dimension
• Social Dimension
• Networking Dimension
• Integration Dimension
• Collaboration
• Community

9
District Structure and Processes

• Web 2.0 technology emphasizes the fundamental
  shift from information to communication, more
  specific in social communication/interaction.
  Effective Web 2.0 integrations would require each
  individual student to manage his or her Web 2.0
  tools to meet his or her learning goals.

10
Architecture of Learning

• A key characteristic of Web 2.0 is user
  participationthe wisdom of the crowds, the
  architecture of participationmashups,
  remixing, and coconstruction are fundamental and
  widespread practices in Web 2.0. In contrast,
  despite the general increase in group
  collaboration in recent years, educational
  systems fundamentally revolve around individual
  testingevidencing of attainment of a level of
  knowledge and understanding against a set of
  predefined criteria.

11
Authority Destructions

• Social constructivism is a more student-centered
  approach to learning that emphasizes the need for
  coconstruction of knowledge (please see Chapter
  5). Traditionally, education and the way teaching
  occurs are divided into subject fieldsThis model
  has been increasingly challenged in the last few
  decades as subject domains fragment and diversify
  and as knowledge seems to expand exponentially.
  It is no longer possible for any individual to be
  an expert in his or her field, with an
  understanding of the full scope of his or her
  domain. Web 2.0 copes with a complex and changing
  knowledge domain fundamental to Web 2.0 practice
  is that no one individual is expert and rather
  all individuals are part of a social network of
  others.

12
Personal Learning Space

• It is evident that the new technologies now
  enable individuals to personalize the environment
  in which they work or learn, appropriating a
  range of tools to meet their interests and needs
  such personal learning environments have been
  considered an alternative to institutionally
  controlled virtual learning environments, such as
  CMSs or LMSs.

13
Planning Personal Learning Space

• Integrate social networking sites
• Content with discussions, Wikis
• Social communication, Twitter or Jaiku
• Virtual meetings Flashmeeting or Skype
• Quiz/informal assessments, Blog Quiz
• Web platforms, Zotero/Delicious
• Sharing Collaborative sharing is the key to
  social learning. Google Docs, FileURLs,
  SlideShares, YouTube, and Diigo

• A few examples that distance learning teachers
  and their principals can integrate to support
  individual students learning spaces.

14
Professional Development

• Three major steps are critical in teacher
  technology training.
• Online teachers must become performers, those
  who can facilitate online students to manage
  their individual learning spaces. This means
  online teachers would employ Web 2.0 technologies
  before assigning students to do so.
• Districts should assist teachers with
  identifying a purpose for adopting Web 2.0
  technologies so they know how to design their
  curriculum effectively and then how to assess
  this innovation.
• Districts should assist teachers with relating
  Web 2.0 technologies to the goals of the course
  and help show how they fit in and benefit
  students.

15
Key Principles for Leaders to Know

• 1. Products to deliver Provide training to
  teachers so they understand correctly that online
  learning technology is to deliver knowledge and
  skills, not just content.
• 2. Web platform Provide effective training via a
  Web platform to model effective educational
  services/pedagogy.
• 3. Personalization and choice Encourage teachers
  and students to build differentiation/personalized
  learning.

16
Key Principles for Leaders to Know, cont

• 4. User positioning Allow and encourage teachers
  and students to take control of their own data to
  create personal learning environments.
• 5. Services, not packaged software Provide
  effective training on a regular basis to assist
  teachers with integrating different Web 2.0 tools
  to support their learning and/or their work.
• 6. Architecture of participation Allow and
  empower teachers to organize their learning model
  via participation, creating, editing, organizing,
  retrieving, and tagging contents.

17
Key Principles for Leaders to Know, cont

• 7. Re-mixable data source and data
  transformations Schools should provide multiple
  Web 2.0 tools, but they may have duplicate
  functions to allow teachers to select their own
  tools. Assist teachers with aggregating and
  connecting various forms of data/content.
• 8. Software above the level of a single device
  One piece of software doesnt result in effective
  learning. Software should be seen as constant
  evolving services, rather than items that are
  updated or upgraded on a regular basis. Schools
  should update and identify new software to
  support teachers.

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Key Principles for Leaders to Know, cont

• 9. Harnessing collective intelligence, or
  aggregate intelligence that develops through
  community learning via social networking and
  connecting within a learning community Integrate
  various Web 2.0 tools to create and foster a
  healthy social learning community for teachers to
  learn from each other and exchange effective
  online technology strategies.