Transcript TASITE miniconference

Web 2.0 and education
Best friends or worst enemies?
Dr Ken Price
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"The reasonable man adapts himself to the
conditions that surround him... The
unreasonable man adapts surrounding
conditions to himself... All progress
depends on the unreasonable man."
George Bernard Shaw
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What does Web 2.0 mean for
education?
How students and teachers are using Web
2.0 tools, and some cautionary tales…
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The hype…
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Web 2.0 characteristics
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Web is the platform
The read-write web (as distinct from the read-only web)
Data comes from users, often many users
Data stored somewhere outside of your direct control
Sometimes data combined from multiple sources –
XML data assists this
Authentication taken care of by site (and often
transferable eg Google, Gmail, etc)
Often AJAX-based (Asynchronous Javascript and
XML..ability to process in browser without perceptible
lag).
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Students are using Web 2.0
now
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Blogs,e.g. Blogspot, Blogger, Mo’time,
Social network software, e.g. Myspace,
Facebook,
Tagged photo stores, e.g. Flickr
Del.icio.us
Wikis,e.g. Wikipedia
Communication networks, e.g. Skype
News and audio services, e.g. podcasts and
hosted video
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Technical stuff
Boring technical
feature
So what?
Asynchronous data retrieval with
XMLHttpRequest
No discernible lag when you do stuff
JavaScript to tie it all together
Interaction with user
XHTML and CSS standards based
presentation
Can easily change appearance - data and
presentation separated
Interaction with the page through
the DOM
Can directly control page
Data interchange with XML and
XSLT
Can interoperate with other systems,
present their data in locally-defined ways
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Disruptive technology
Web 2.0 is inherently a disruptive
technology… this has two faces.
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Disruptive technology
 Disruption
innovation
is Essential to
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Disruptive technology
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Disruption is Evil for
some (many?) school
leaders, school systems
and maybe some
teachers
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Pageflakes
www.pageflakes.com/
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A sort of customisable dashboard that can
draw data from a wide range of other
Web2.0 applications
My pageflakes page
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Web 2.0 and pedagogy
“I'm not surprised to read …that most of the
activities involving broadband are teacher-led (or
what I call the Dick Turpin style of teaching - stand
and deliver) because we're not encouraging this
symmetry, with pupils creating content and using
broadband to share it with others.
There needs to be this peer-to-peer type of learning
and this why broadband hasn't yet delivered the
properly personalised curriculum. Sadly, today,
broadband is about delivery and not about what it
truly should be: participation.”
(Stephen Heppell, 2006)
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Metaphors
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Web 1.0 – web as digital library, largely a
source of information for students. Strive
for content to be authoritative.
Web 2.0 – web as place for students to
build knowledge, interact, share ideas/
Resulting content treated accordingly.
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Web 2.0 uptake - initially
Web 2.0 tools are often used as Web 1.0
tools initially
eg blogs and podcasts initially just used as a
way of disseminating class tasks and notes,
del.icio.us collections used only to convey
websites, Wikipedia just as a “reference”
tool
 Having student content, feedback and
interaction sometimes challenges education
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Web 2.0 and constructivism
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If we accept that knowledge creation is at
least a significant part of pedagogy, we
need tools that support this
Web 2.0 tools meet this need
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Rate My Teachers…
au.ratemyteachers.com/
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What would your school/system do if
faced with this?
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Rate My Teachers…
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Now has teacher response feature!!
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Delicious
http://del.icio.us/
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At its simplest - just a social bookmarks
organiser
Nice way for students to maintain/share
reference and personal collections of online
material, or teachers to present these
Portable, device-independent
Based on user-determined tagging
(folksonomy rather than formal taxonomy)
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Example - http://del.icio.us/practicalclassroomstuff
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Why use del.icio.us?
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Save site found using multiple computers (home and
school) to one place.
Access your bookmarks anywhere you have web access.
Continue to access your bookmarks even when your
computer crashes or you get a new computer.
Share web sites with your students or peers.
Search your bookmarks by keywords and tags.
Use related tags to narrow or extend your searches.
Display your saved web site links by category.
Learn about new sites from your other del.icio.us users.
Subscribe to other users’ del.icio.us bookmarks.
Check out recently posted and popular sites.
http://personal.strath.ac.uk/d.d.muir/Delicious1_2.pdf
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Impact of Web 2.0 on education
systems
 There
seems to be a pattern of
how schools and systems respond
to disruptive technology
 Evident since HotMaiL (maybe
before?)
 5 stages
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System responses to disruptive
technology
Some online tool becomes
available freely
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System responses to disruptive
technology
Students use it at home and
school
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System responses to disruptive
technology
Some educators may (validly or
otherwise) see this tool as a
threat. They respond by
restricting, renouncing or
simply banning it.
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System responses to disruptive
technology
Tool becomes widespread in wider
community (Gladwell’s Tipping
Point reached?). Student use or
expectation reaches critical mass,
education sees its potential and
the need to provide it securely
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System responses to disruptive
technology
Education responds with a
secure and manageable
replacement
And everyone breathes a sigh of relief….
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System responses to disruptive
technology
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Where is your school/institution in relation
to these 5 steps?
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Google Earth
http://earth.google.com/
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As it stands, it’s really Web 1.0
With student-generated and shared data,
it’s an almost Web 2.0 application.
Mashups of Google Earth or Maps with
other data can produce neat educational
products
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Google Literature Trips, timelines,
etc
www.googlelittrips.com/ - track the journey
described in a book or story, and annotate
the places on the way.
 London timeline (kmz file) animation of
London skyline over time
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Youtube and Teachertube
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www.youtube.com
www.teachertube.com
Example of YouTube in classroom
www.thecorner.org/hist/video/v_ww2.htm
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Youtube – classroom video
How would your school respond to this?
<<link to teacher rage video>>
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Youtube – the other side of secret
video
Secret filming teacher defended
Mrs Mason denies professional misconduct and failing to
promote the education and welfare of students.
It would be a "travesty of justice" to discipline a supply
teacher who secretly filmed her pupils for a documentary,
a tribunal has heard.
Channel Five's controller Chris Shaw told a General Teaching Council hearing that
Angela Mason had contributed to an important public debate.
Mrs Mason, of north London, is accused of professional misconduct for filming
staff and students without consent.
She denies misconduct, saying she wanted to expose "classroom chaos".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/6593605.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/6589707.stm
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ThinkFree
www.thinkfree.com/
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Almost a complete office suite (like
Microsoft Office), complete with storage
and the ability to share (Seems blocked in DoE)
Google docs and
spreadsheets
docs.google.com
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Very simple and effective writing and
numeric tools, compatible with common
tools
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Why use ThinkFree
or Google Docs?
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Available at home, school, anywhere (both
program and data)
Legal, no license costs
Kids can share and collaborate on work
Compatible with common software when
necessary
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Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/
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Simple photo-storing and sharing site
Tagging by users
As always educators find unexpected ways to
use it
16 ways to use Flickr in your library
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Flickr as a tool for
annotating images for
critical analysis or
instruction
Art
 www.flickr.com/photos/ha112/414146234/
Recipes  www.flickr.com/photos/ldandersen/257380
6/
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Flickr recipe
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Mind and
concept
mapping tools
www.mindomo.com
http://bubbl.us/
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Online mindmapping-brainstorming tools,
with inbuilt storage
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NoteMesh
http://notemesh.com/
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Collaborative note taking and building of
student knowledge from class/lecture
model.
(associates your email address to your
school/college/TAFE/university)
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Gliffy
http://www.gliffy.com/
Online diagramming tool (similar to Visio but
more elementary)
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JumpCut
http://www.jumpcut.com/
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Edit and store videos online
Obvious issues of content, duty of care,
exposure of education system or school
to unwanted publicity
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Curriki
www.curriki.org
Free online curriculum, built in a wiki-style
model.
Can be used as a resource, or as a place to
collaboratively build curriculum
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Edu 2.0
www.edu20.org
 Provides shared curriculum/courses, and
allows people to teach them or learn
from them
 Courses can be public or private
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OK so what is left?
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There are tools to provide desktop
productivity software, email, online
storage, mindmapping, diagramming,
image management, GIS-geospatial tools,
video, audio, etc etc
What if education and training just made
use of these instead of trying to provide
it?
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What if all this was available for
free?
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Email, 2 GB of storage per student, mail search tools and integrated
chat.
Access your inbox, calendar, docs and campus info, plus search the
web from one place.
Manage your domain and user accounts online.
Free text and voice calling around the world.
Docs & Spreadsheets: create, share and collaborate on documents
in real-time
Coordinate meetings and school events with sharable calendars.
Easily create and publish web pages.
All with a single username and password
And for a small fee, if you want it…
 Integrate with your existing IT systems or 3rd party solutions.
 24/7 assistance, including phone support.
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Well, it is. Right now.
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There are risks…
Where is your data?
• Who else can get to it?
• Does the application encourage
inappropriate use?
• What happens if the service
provider has technical problems,
goes out of business?
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Usernames and passwords – how to manage them
all?
• Security risk if you use same username/pwd as on
your own systems? Need for different levels of
password
• Data volume and bandwidth requirements?
•
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The future…
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Let’s hope that early-adopter educators
continue to innovate with new
technologies, and schools and systems
make use of their findings to benefit all
learners.
Now to find out more about Edna Web 2.0
tools…
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What would YOU do?
a
student uses
RateMyTeachers.com and claims
that a teacher is involved in an
inappropriate relationship with
one of her students?
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What would YOU do?
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some students use a photosharing
site to share photos of last weekend’s
drinking party. Some of the photos
involve nudity
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What would YOU do?
a teacher uses a free public blog site to
develop and deliver all their year’s work.
The blog site closes without notice 6
months later as the company collapses.
The teacher has no copy of their materials
because “it’s all stored on that network
thing isn’t it??”
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What would YOU do?
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Your students decide to repeatedly
edit the Wikipedia pages for your city,
to “improve” them. The Wikipedia
administrators block the IP range for
your school system so nobody in your
school/system can edit.
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What would YOU do?
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Some kids hate the different software
versions, settings and applications on
school and home computers.
They decide instead to do all their work
using ThinkFree, a totally online
application and data storage tool.
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