The Web 2.0 in our classrooms

The Web 2.0 has revolutionized the way people communicate, create, collaborate and share all kind of information and content online. There are plenty of tools that are accessible and easy to use. As future teachers we may want to explore some of those tools to enhance learners’ development of digital skills. Those applications are available for everyone and each of them offer different opportunities and purposes. 

I am sure all of you are familiarised with some of them such as Blogger, Wikis, Dropbox, Google.docs and social networks like Facebook, Twitter etc. 

The question is:  social networks like Facebook, are adequate to be used as learning environments?

 

On one hand, Facebook may be a useful tool to share information and projects that students carry out during their lessons, since it presents an appealing environment  and they may feel motivated to participate. As well as that, that would be possible because it allows you to create a private group for debate, otherwise it would be really difficult to work with certain privacy.

On the other hand, it may represent a challenge to see whether all learners are reading the content uploaded, for instance. What's more, a doubt that comes to my mind whether to use it for educational purposes is that some social networks, like Facebook or Twitter, usually are virtual places designed to chill out and share personal experiences with friends, so many people reject the idea of using it as an environment for study and simply decide not to participate. 


Finally, I would say that If I had to choose, I would work with online platforms that are designed for specific educational purposes. Many of them, like Edmodo, are user friendly and allow you to share as a community and upload all kind of content that learners need to have access.

To end, I would say that it's important to explore the different learning opportunities that each tool provide, but we should ask ourselves whether the tool we want to use  meet our aims and if it is suitable according to the purpose and task in mind, taking into account the way we would assess our learners. Another important aspect is to remember that all learners should be instructed on how to use the applications, not all of them are used to them as we may think. Discussing and establishing rules of usage are important as well.

Discovery Education - Web 2.0

What's your experience? Would you like to share it?