Does web 2.0 benefit students?

Web 2.0 is suffering the same fate as previous “Revolutionary” ICT technologies of earlier decades. Politicians, school governors and university management are often heard citing the benefits of these new technologies, but there is still a lack of empirical evidence to suggest that the use of web 2.0 improves student performance.

However (moving swiftly on …), there are some clear benefits that Rob Spence (English and History) has found whilst using Wiki technology:

• Improved student engagement
• Students feel less on the spot
• Students are more self critical
• Tracking of student performance from day 1

Rationale

There is a perception that students are arriving at university with ever decreasing levels of literacy, combined with ever increasing support requirements. Spoon feeding ‘A’ level candidates is thought to be a widespread practice in many schools and colleges, and when combined with a highly prescriptive curriculum perhaps it is no wonder that many students struggle when they arrive at university. It’s not unheard of for new students, when presented with an essay title, to ask for the opening sentence or paragraph, the quotes they are likely to need to use, and other guidance and materials.

These were the kinds of issues that Rob had been experiencing – perhaps informing his rationale for using a wiki for part of his first year “Introduction to Narrative” course.

Benefits

Reflecting on his use of the wiki, Rob found that his students were more willing to get involved in writing at an earlier point in their university career, and found the experience less threatening than being put on the spot in a classroom session. Students were found to be more self critical – perhaps because they were writing for a perceived audience. One of the major benefits that Rob experienced was being able to see students work from much earlier in the learning process than in previous years – he could see drafts and developments from many students in the same area so was able to identify and track “Problem Students” at a much earlier point in the cycle.

Is it for me?

If you are considering using web 2.0 stuff (wikis, blogs, bookmarking …) in your teaching and learning, the Learning Technology team would love to hear from you. We are here to encourage and support you in the use of technology for teaching and learning. You can contact me (david.callaghan@edgehill.ac.uk x 7753) or Katherine Richardson (richark@edgehill.ac.uk x 7754).

David Callaghan
27^th November 2009

Image by Peter Nielsen, 2009

Adaptations that I would like to see in my classroom

Trawling through an archive of my e-learning masters course I found my thoughts about hopeful improvements within the next 10 years. Here’s what I said in 2006:

Adaptations which I would like to see in my classroom and may be financially and technically possible in the next 10 years (briefly, as I think most are aware of my ideas):

• Thin client, cheap laptop, robust technology.
• Increasing use of VLE, especially the forum feature – encouraging students to learn from each other.
• Project based learning – less discrete subject and more ‘joined up’ (is that word making a come back, please) teaching and learning.
• Use of variety of software, away from monolithic Microsoft towards other commercial and open sourced provision.
• Get the kit to become more of an assistant than a hindrance:
• currently we:

• need to type, I want to see voice recognition;
• we need to look at small screens, I want to see wearable displays giving a complete field of view;
• we rely too much on text, I want to see multimedia used to it’s proper conclusion;
• we have to say “Wait whilst my computer boots up”, I want to have a
  turned on instantly available source of information, as accessible as a piece of paper in my pocket.

… how far do you think we’ve come?

I think the above brings to mind that

1. There has been some movement in thin client, but perhaps not as much as I’d like;
2. The VLE forum is being challenged by the “small parts” model (utilising other web based social tools, as well as phone technologies); and
3. Open source is becoming more mainstream (look at cheap netbooks operating systems).
4. It also highlights that we have far to go with the human-machine interface (to lower that barrier), more use of multimedia and a machine that switches on when you ask it to, not 5 minutes later when it feels like it.

On the latter point, consider the OLPC, (this from their discussion of power usage page):

"Resume on our system is extremely fast: even without any serious attempt to optimize resume, we can resume from RAM in 160 milliseconds (mid-April, 2007). We are still determining the minimum resume time, as a 63ms delay we thought was required has a workaround in the Geode. B3 and later systems are probably similar to the GX. We will work in the future to further speed resume. Note that for most uses, 100ms is considered at the edge of human perception (e.g. typing).”

So, if OLPC can do it …

Thanks for reading – thoughts and comments sought.

David (image by mangee)