e-learning 2.0 - how Web technologies are shaping education

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August 08, 2006 /12 commentse-learning 2.0 - how Web technologies are shaping education
Written bySteve O‘Hear and edited by Richard MacManus. This is a two-part series in which Steve will explore how Web technologies are being used in education. InPart 2 he will profileElgg, social network software for education, and interview its founders.

Much has been written onRead/WriteWeb (and elsewhere) about the effect that web technologies are having on commerce, media, and business in general. But outside of the ‘edublogosphere‘, there‘s been little coverage of the impact it is having on education. Teachers are starting to explore the potential of blogs, media-sharing services and other social software - which, although not designed specifically for e-learning, can be used to empower students and create exciting new learning opportunities.
As I wrotein The Guardian last year:
"Like the web itself, the early promise of e-learning - that of empowerment - has not been fully realized. The experience of e-learning for many has been no more than a hand-out published online, coupled with a simple multiple-choice quiz. Hardly inspiring, let alone empowering. But by using these new web services, e-learning has the potential to become far more personal, social and flexible."
The traditional approach to e-learning has been to employ the use of a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), software that is often cumbersome and expensive - and which tends to be structured around courses, timetables, and testing. That is an approach that is too often driven by the needs of the institution rather than the individual learner. In contrast,e-learning 2.0 (as coined byStephen Downes) takes a ‘small pieces, loosely joined‘ approach that combines the use of discrete but complementary tools and web services - such as blogs, wikis, and other social software - to support the creation of ad-hoc learning communities.
Blogging
Blogging is increasingly finding a home in education (both in school and university), as not only does the software remove the technical barriers to writing and publishing online - but the ‘journal‘ format encourages students to keep a record of their thinking over time. Blogs also of course facilitate critical feedback, by letting readers add comments - which could be from teachers, peers or a wider audience.
Students use of blogs are far ranging. A single authored blog can be used to provide a personal space online, to pose questions, publish work in progress, and link to and comment on other web sources. However a blog needn‘t be limited to a single author - it can mix different kinds of voices, including fellow students, teachers and mentors, or subject specialists. Edu-blogging pioneerWill Richardson (author ofa book entitled ‘Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms‘) used the blog softwareManila to enable his english literature students to publisha readers guide to the bookThe Secret Life of Bees. Richardson asked the book‘s author, Sue Monk Kidd, if she would participate by answering questions and commenting on what the students had written - to which she agreed. The result was a truly democratic learning space.

From the Secret Life of BeesStudy Guide
More edu-blogging examples
Under the guidance ofEwan McIntosh, Musselburgh Grammar School in Scotland has, for the second year running, publisheda travel blog of the school‘s annual trip to Paris and Normandy (usingTypePad‘s hosted blogging service). Additionally, the student council publishes a blog to keep the school‘s community informed and involved on various issues. McIntosh has also pioneered the use of Podcasting in education (more below), and last year, the school‘sMGS Podcast was short-listed for a New Statesman New Media award.
School children in the UK are proof that you‘re never too young to start edu-blogging. Inspired by their teacher John Mills, the seven year-old students at West Blatchington School in Hoveblog fanatically. The school even holds blogging assemblies, as I found out when I had the privilege of meeting the next generation of bloggers fora film I presented last year for Teacher‘s TV.

Teacher‘s TV
Teachers who are subject specialists are also using blogs to provide up-to-date information and commentary on their subject areas, as well as posting questions and assignments and linking to relevant news stories and websites. Media studies teacher Pete Fraser runsone such blog (usingBlogger) for his students at Long Road sixth-form college, in Cambridge, UK.
Inevitably, educationalists are also using blogs to share their innovative use of web 2.0 in education - and, in turn, spread good practice. Prominent UK edu-bloggers that I‘m subscribed to (aside from those already mentioned) includeJosie Fraser,Miles Berry,Peter Ford andTerry Freedman.
Podcasting

Podcasting has become a popular technology in education, in part because it provides a way of pushing educational content to learners. For example, Stanford University has teamed up with Apple to create theStanford iTunes University - which provides a range of digital content (some closed and some publicly accessible) that students can subscribe to using Apple‘s iTunes software.
However, student-produced podcasts are where it‘s at when it comes to educational podcasting. Swap ‘user-generated content‘ for ‘learner- generated content‘ and you soon get the picture. Apple, with its strong presence in the education market, has been quick to recognize the learning potential of student podcasting. Apple isheavily marketing its iPod and associated content creation tools (iMovie, GarageBand, and iTunes) to the education sector. The podcasting section of iTunes even has a category dedicated to education.
For a great example of a student-produced podcast, check out theMGS Podcast which I wrote aboutfor the Guardian. As with blogging, podcasting provides students with a sense of audience - and they are highly motivated to podcast because the skills required seem ‘relevant‘ to today‘s world.
Media sharing
The photo-sharing siteFlickr is also finding use within education - as it provides a valuable resource for students and educators looking for images for use in presentations, learning materials or coursework. Many of the images uploaded to Flickr carry aCreative Commons license, making them particular suitable for educational use - and the tagging of images makes it much easier to find relevant content.
Students can also use Flickr to publish their digital photography to a wider audience. And like blogging, the commenting function on Flickr allows for critical feedback. A lesser-known feature of Flickr - the ability to add hot-spot annotations to an image - also has much potential as a learning tool. Beth Harris, director of distance learning at the Fashion Institute of Technology, State University of New York, has used this feature to enable her students toannotate and discuss a series of paintings as part of an online art history course.

Annotating and discussing on Flickr
Pete Fraser (mentioned above) has beenexperimenting with the use of video-sharing siteYouTube with his media studies students, as part of a course on new media. Rather than have students prepare a traditional presentation, students were asked toproduce a short video on a chosen new media subject - examples included MySpace and the rise of the iPod. Videos were then published onto YouTube, where they can be viewed and commented on by classmates and the wider YouTube community.
DOPA and Social Networks
The educational potential of social software and services is huge. However, much of the work being done by educators (of which I‘ve barely scratched the surface) is in danger of being undermined by the recently proposedDeleting Online Predators Act (DOPA). This legislation attempts to address the moral panic over sites like MySpace and the perceived ‘dangers‘ they pose to children, by banning the use of commercial social networking websites in US schools and libraries which receive federal IT funding. A "commercial social networking website" is defined as any web service that:
"...allows users to create web pages or profiles that provide information about themselves and are available to other users; and offers a mechanism for communication with other users, such as a forum, chat room, email, or instant messenger."
Summary
Inpart two, I‘ll be profilingElgg - a social network for education - as well as talking to the project‘s founders about their future plans for Elgg and their thoughts on the impact DOPA might have (if passed) on the emerging e-learning 2.0 space.
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Steve O‘Hear is currently a fellow for the UK‘s National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA). He is also a freelance journalist and technology consultant - and has recently completed his directorial debut, a documentary titledIn Search of the Valley: a personal journey into the psyche of Silicon Valley.
Photo at top of page:Leigh Blackall
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# 1
Magnificent article Steve - thanks for sharing. If you are interested in engaging with a bunch of Aussie ICT/education types who are wrestling with ‘So whats changed‘ as a result of the read/write web - check out the stuff coming from education.au. These guys are working hard to understand, and put into practice some of the web2 goodness for elearning2.
My little post on their conference last week (Im the dude who helped with podcasts from the event):
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/mikeseyfang/~3/9991775/
Cheers and thanks
Fang
Posted by:mike seyfang |August 8, 2006 04:56 PM
# 2
Hu? "complimentary tools and web services" does he mean "complementary....." he who lives by spell check dies by spell check.
Posted by: the shadow |August 8, 2006 05:29 PM
# 3
Heh, well done ‘the shadow‘. Gold star for you :-) I‘ve fixed that now.
Posted by:Richard MacManus |August 8, 2006 05:43 PM
# 4
The key point here is "too often driven by the needs of the institution rather than the individual learner".
This exact same shift in market power - from producer to consumer - is happening in the media industry as a whole, so why should it be any different with training media?
Posted by:Hank Horkoff |August 8, 2006 09:36 PM
# 5
Thanks for the kind words Fang - I‘ll be checking out your blog and the work going on in Aus.
Sorry about the ‘typo‘ Richard :) I‘ll take the blame for that one.
Posted by:Steve O‘Hear |August 9, 2006 05:44 AM
# 6
eLearning 2.0 is also having a fairly pronounced effect in corporate learning. While traditional training organizations are lagging what is happening in educational settings, the opportunity is much the same:Learning Trends Point To and Shape eLearning 2.0.
Posted by:Tony Karrer |August 9, 2006 06:52 AM
# 7
Fascinating overview, and especially interesting to hear the UK perspective. You mention the excellent potential of the flikr and itunes tools, and I could not agree more.
Over here at Michigan State University, we have developed a similar (and integrated) suite of tools for educational and research (and who knows what other) purposes. Media Matrix--an online tool for isolating, segmenting and annotating digital media. (developed under NSF funding). It‘s basically the product of asking the same kind of questions you are here (and Downes)--what happens when students and researchers can really work with digital objects in the contexts of learning? Manipulate them, group them, juxtapose them, describe them for their own purposes? We‘re already learning a lot.
We‘re still in beta-stages, but if you‘re interested in checking it out (its openly and freely available to everyone) go to:http://www.matrix.msu.edu/~mmatrix/
thanks!
Posted by:Joy |August 10, 2006 12:31 PM
# 8
"Too often driven by the needs of the institution rather than the individual learner" Yeeeeees -- duuuuh -- if you are paid by a bureaucratic institute you carry forward the traditions, rules, regulations and Thorndikian/Pestalizian/Dueyannian vision of the institute.
If, on the other hand – IF -- you are brave enough to try to make a self sustaining business of "Web2/edu" you will probably go down in flames with the others who were "right" but up against the edu monopoly of thought and physical reality.
CCC Project, Dr. Pat Suppes
PLATO
Scholar Teach
TICCIT program
ATI of Rochester
And many, many …tooo many others.
You may say “but things have changed” and you are right, they – the technologies - have changed, cheaper in cost and ubiquitous (for teachers, that means that it’s everywhere) and frustration with the present status of education is very, very high. Even more important - the children are growing up with and are absorbing these technologies and communication tools. What has not changed is the 100 year monopoly of education. Some say “they don’t get it” and that is exactly right. They “don’t get it”. They didn’t get it in the 70, the 80s, the 90s and they don’t want to “get it” now – because if they did “get it” it would mean revolution. Bureaucracies HATE revolutions – get in line over there! Bureaucracies will spend every ounce of energy, money and guile to protect its position and power.
Count on it and you won’t be disappointed.
Can you re-channel the education dollars to you rather that to them? Think about it. They hate change. You are change. If they fund you for a short period it’s just to get you out of their hair for a while. Then watch out – I mean you personally.
So. Prove me wrong. I‘d love it.
TIP: A great market may be home schoolers. If your product is educationally sound, works and is cost effective they will buy. So will business.
PS. Pip Coburn’s book: Why some technologies take off and others crash and burn may provide insight to those who can take a business metaphor and translate it into the edu world.
Posted by: Klueless luke |August 10, 2006 01:52 PM
# 9
I have been wondering why is the social in social networking functioning in such an appealing way in educational sphere?
Posted by:heping |August 11, 2006 11:49 PM
# 10
As a high school teacher whose been using blogs with students for almost 7 years, I‘ve been frustrated at the current culture that have added restricting parameters to the type of learning space I‘ve created for my students. Before the days where ‘blog‘ became the ‘Word of the Year‘, my students and I explored the potential of social software in education, discovered strategies that worked for increasing learning along the way, and changed those that didn‘t add to our mission -- "Learning". But as mentioned above, the current landscape has increased the risk for teachers willing to be pioneers in the area of social networking tools and education and increased the energy required to brace themselves for potential critics. School administrators have shared with me that they see the potential, but are not prepared to brave the critics and skeptics. As school administrators, they have too many other battles to fight without adding another potential hotbed of criticism. If Google is willing to spend 900 million dollars to advertise in social networking environments, then perhaps education should consider investing more time looking at the potential of social networking tools for learning than they do keeping kids from using these tools.
My recent move from high school to a K-8 environment, brought on a whole new wave of concern due to the age of the children and COPA legislation. Oracle‘s THINK.COM has provided one solution for me to continue to explore some of the potential educational use of read/write web with younger students in the current political culture. Luke‘s comments offer some interesting perspectives to the motivation behind DOPA. The folks who created SupportBlogging.com have created a wonderful opportunity for some of us who have concerns about the current landscape to pool our energies. Great article. I‘m adding it to the "must read" list
in my work with teacher training.
Posted by: Lucie |August 12, 2006 08:47 AM
# 11
The last sample in my recent blog entry onPPT to Flash Examples is an educational introduction to foxes -- created by a 10-year-old using only PowerPoint, a microphone, and Articulate Presenter.
It‘s pretty basic and probably wouldn’t pass any sound instructional design criteria, but it‘s actually better and more thought out than much of the e-learning content I‘ve seen from large corporations (who shall remain nameless). :)
What’s significant, though, is that today’s “Internet generation,” which has grown up being immersed in technology, is often more comfortable creating Web content than are their parents. And this is just more proof of that.
Posted by:Gabe Anderson |August 28, 2006 11:34 AM
# 12
Excelent!!!
Posted by:eraser |September 10, 2006 01:24 AM