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Web 2.0 in Edu - Strengths and Issues

Posted April 13th, 2008 by chrishambly
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I am chairing an Edu panel at Podcamp NYC April 26 with the title of "Web 2.0 in Edu - Strengths and Issues"

We have Hilary Mason and Joyce Bettencourt joining us and we are looking for another two or three academics/support/admin/manager types, hopefully people with some opposing views and in various roles within a large institution, or operating within strict IT policies, or cultures opposed to change.

The event is informal with the panel being an interactive conversation with the participants (audience), where we will dig into positive and negative experiences with the aim of sharing good practice.

If you are interested please do email me.

I have a head full of both issues and strengths but let's use this space for anything that immediately springs to your mind, in terms of the title. So what do you think the strengths are and what do you think the issues are? What can you share about this that I can take with me to NYC?

UPDATE : 18.04.06 - Christine Cavalier is also now joining us on the panel.

UPDATE : 18.04.08 - I was directed to a large collection of lWeb2.0 inks on shambles, which I have also listed here as some of these are so good I wanted to ensure they were in my site's database links tables (I can use them site-wise). In addition I will more than likely update this list from time to time.

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Web 2.0 in education

On April 14th, 2008 Ruth (not verified) says:

First thing that comes to mind is that nobody's ready. Web 2.0 positively enables and encourages students to become independent learners but they, themselves, don't want to. They still want to be shown and led (based on my experience with Year 1 undergrads and blogging). On the other side of the equation old timers in HE don't understand, and in some cases fear, the technology so they aren't ready either. I think the only way we really make advances with the technology is to work on it together - student plus lecturer - and that is a bit scary in terms of role and responsibility

culture and expectation of learning environments

On April 18th, 2008 chrishambly says:

Hello Ruth.

Yes, your experiences are coming across clearly here and I also have experiences I want to mention briefly in response.

I have lectured in face-to-face Universities and also run a distance learning school, and in fact in some cases almost an identical syllabus and the interesting thing is that the distance learning students are light-years ahead in terms of being self-directed, presumably because they fully understand that they are in a "virtual community", that's the mode of operation.

In addition the staff I have employed in the distance learning school are the same, tech hungry and fully "immersed".

So that leaves us with the question of culture and expectation of learning environments? How do we change those?

One way is through Unconference MediaCamp type events, they raise great awareness. Any other ideas?

Web 2 in education

On April 14th, 2008 Julia (not verified) says:

Lots of thoughts come to mind- I agree that nobody is ready- but also think by the time we are the web will have moved on- large institutions will always be playing catch up and struggling with policies to deal with new technologies- meanwhile we lose valuable opportunities. There will always be the early adopters and innovators who will try anything, but the challenge is to engage those who do not see the relevance of technology in their teaching. In order to encourage people to experiment they need to be confident that they will be able to access the technology they need wherever they are teaching and in too many institutions this is far from being the norm. Universities also need experimental areas where staff and students can try out new technologies without worrying about security etc. We need more opportunities to share good practice and avoid reinventing the wheel. Perhaps we could develop an online directory of projects and examples where Web 2 technologies have been successfully integrated?

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