Educational Fears over Web 2.0 – are the new technologies encouraging heightened disengagement?

Selwyn writes about the following concerns:-

·      Concerns over heightened disengagement

·      Concerns over the detrimental effect that Web 2.0 tools may have on ‘traditional’ skills and literacies

·      Concerns over realignment of the power relationships between teachers and students – e.g. websites like ‘Ratemyprofessors.com’ allowing students to aggregate public feedback on different teachers.

Weller has a different view, writing that Web 2.0 should, in theory, be perfect for “a more participatory, socially constructed view of knowledge.”

My own view is that people are inherently social and that we will see increasing socialization on the web. Early adopters of technology – ‘geeks’ – tend to be more introverted and may embrace aspects of Web 2.0 that allow for a more introverted approach – and this may be interpreted as ‘heightened disengagement’. But as technologies advance and become more accessible to a wider range of users, a wider range of students is naturally using them a lot more. Educational tools haven’t caught up yet with this drive for sociability – and this is why many students are texting or  using Facebook during classes and lectures. Students are highly motivated to engage with eachother, it’s just that educational tools aren’t yet in existence that channel and encourage this motivation towards learning.

A linked point – teenagers and young adults (and most students are in this age group) are at a stage where they are still developing the identities they want to present to the world. It can be helpful and reassuring, when one’s sense of one’s own identity is uncertain, to be able to present a carapace to the world – so they may embrace technologies that allow them to operate from behind a safe barrier, and this may look to us like heightened disengagement. The teenager sitting at the dinner table ignoring the people around him/her whilst texting messages to friends is a classic example. But this behaviour is not a function of a desire for isolation, it is a matter of secure positioning for socialization – technology is offering a space to consolidate a stable sense of identity for presentation to peers through a text message or a Facebook page.


[H800 Week 18 Activity 2]

Learning Dimensions

Web 2.0 impacts on four principle dimensions of the learner’s experience.

(1) Collaboration. Web 2.0 offers educators a set of tools to support collaborative learning and the building of classroom communities.

(2) Publication. Web 2.0 supports users in creating original materials for publication.

(3) Literacies. Digital media offer new forms of representation and expression, increasing the potential for creativity.

(4) Inquiry. Web 2.0 offers new ways to conduct personal research, new structures for organizing data and new interrogation tools.

Charles Crook thinks that Collaboration and Publication are more social in nature, whereas Literacies and Inquiry are more cognitive in nature. I think the line between these categorisations is more blurred. ‘Literacies’ and ‘Inquiry’ have strong social dimensions – in fact, isn’t Web 2.0 primarily ‘social’?

The Virtualisation of Exchange Practices

·      Web 2.0 technologies are causing the lowering, and often removal, of transaction costs and overheads.

·      Products, that can now be digitized, are increasing in availability.

·      The cost of participating as a vendor is reducing.

·      All of these factors are combining to create a massive boost in user engagement.

Note, however, that the increase in engagement of users and availability of materials also requires a need for increasing learner discernment – and this will manifest itself in better searching, selecting and filtering practices / technologies.


[H800 Week 18 Activity 2]

What are Web 2.0 Technologies, and Why Do They Matter?

Web 2.0 Technologies

• Broadband connectivity
• Increase in downloadable media
• ‘Always on’ internet
• Hardware miniaturization
• Falling cost of Central Data Storage – leading to a lot more uploading and downloading of material.

Web 2.0 software

• ·      Blogs
• ·      Wikis
• ·      Social Bookmarking (delicious)
• ·      Media-Sharing Services (YouTube, iTunes)
• ·      Podcasting
• ·      Social Networking Sites (Facebook, LinkedIn)
• ·      Social Presence Systems (Twitter)
• ·      Collaborative Writing and Editing Tools (Google Docs and Spreadsheets, Gliffy)
• ·      Syndication and Notification Technologies (Google Reader, RSS)
• ·      Start Pages (NetVibes, iGoogle, Pageflakes)
• ·      Bricolage (the act of experimentally building new artefacts, e.g. adding widgets to the borders of your blog)
• ·      Mashups (Yahoo Pipes)

Why do these technologies matter?

Because they are catalyzing a massive growth in user engagement.

Does Web 2.0 encourage decentralization?

Weller suggests that decentralization, democratization and bottom-up processes characterize the world of Web 2.0.

I guess that the website ‘delicious’ supports this characterization, as its tagging folksonomy is completely decentralized and in the hands of users.

Wikipedia is slightly different – although much of the content creation is decentralized, the editing process is done by a smaller group of people, with ultimate control being highly centralized in the hands of a small group of people who have not been democratically appointed.

[H800 Week 18 Activity 1]

Computer Lab in a School for the Poor, Hyderabad, June 2011

Fees for this school range from US$3 - US$9 per month. The pictures show the lab, the street the school is in, and the school building.

Genki English

Phonics being taught by way of interactive DVDs

The Relationship between Technologies and Educational Reform

The commonly-held view that technology is a panacea for solving all problems and improving all activities creates a strong momentum towards ‘technological determinism’, whereby professors, administrators and students all assume that universities need the most up-to-date technologies in order to be effective.

Herd instinct comes into play, and without necessarily measuring the real benefits of technology, people may just pile in and invest in new technology because ‘everyone else is doing it’.

If a university fails to invest in the most up-to-date technology, it risks being perceived by students as old-fashioned and therefore not a desirable place to study.

Technology producers and developers, working for companies that must demonstrate profit growth to shareholders, will be incentivised to encourage these perceptions. Sophisticated commercial marketing departments, staffed by experts whose job is to create demand for product, will be far more adept than university administration departments at targeting marketing campaigns so as to fuel the perception that up-to-date technologies are essential if universities are to attract the best students, and if students are to attain the best qualifications.

The huge investment that universities end up making in technology then needs to be justified. Part of the justification may be that technology helps people do the things they already do more efficiently – preparing and disseminating lecture notes, for example, used to be done using type-writers and photocopiers, and can now be done using word processors and email.

But separately, there is a lot of pressure to demonstrate that technology can reform education – can make education happen in new and exciting ways.

So, the expenditure made in new technologies will generate pressure for educational reform. 

Low Cost Private Schooling, Hyderabad, 14 June 2011