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’?