Literature review presentation for CTE 601 @ BGSU (http://bgsu.edu) by Brian J. King

1. Web 2.0 & Higher Education
A Literature Review
Brian J. King
16 December 2008
CTE 601
Tuesday, 16 December, 2008 1

2. Web 1.0
According to Hastings (CEO of Netflix) “Web 1.0 was dial-up, 50K
average bandwidth, Web 2.0 is an average 1 megabit of bandwidth and
Web 3.0 will be 10 megabits of bandwidth, which will be the full video
Web, and that will feel like Web 3.0” (Web 1.0).
According to Flew in his book New Media (3rd edition) he describes the
differences in web 1.0 versus web 2.0 “move from personal websites to
blogs and blog site aggregation, from publishing to participation, from
web content as the outcome of large up-front investment to an ongoing
an interactive process, and from content management systems to links
based on tagging (folksonomy)” (Web 1.0).
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3. Web 2.0
“Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry
caused by the move to the Internet as a platform, and an
attempt to understand the rules for success on that new
platform” (O’Reilly)
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4. What implications?
“We need to invent Digital Native methodologies for all subjects,
at all levels, using our students to guide us” (Prensky).
The technologies have been altered as well as the wiring of
neural networks in Digital Natives; for our education system to
continue to flourish we must invent ways of engaging these
learners with the newest technologies that best match their
learning styles.
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5. Net-Generation Learners & Their
Learning
“Today’s students are no longer the people our educational
system was designed to teach” (Prensky, 2001).
“Collaborative learning is popular with millenials, increasing
computer use among all teens and the use of beepers and cell
phones suggest Millennials spend time tracking down and
communicating with friends and family, Millennials appear more
teamlike, Millenial teens are hard at work on a grossroots
reconstruction of community, teamwork, and civic spirit, and
lastly Millenials are adept at high tech research skills and using
this research in real life” (Coyle).
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6. Bridging the Gap?
“Today’s students are ‘native speakers’ of the digital language of
computers, video games, and the Internet. They process
information and act differently than previous generations. Digital
immigrants have had to adopt; their ‘accents’ are
discernible” (Prensky 2001).
Entire education system must be re-tooled and a paradigm shift
must occur.
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7. Paradigm Shift
Old System
Learning models with the focus being on instruction; where the term
teacher has implications that they transmit or broadcast information
to students.
Content experts (assumed to be the teacher) develop and design
the curriculum and give one-way broadcast type message to be
lectured, read, or in some way assigned to the student.
Teacher Student
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8. Paradigm Shift cont.
According to Tapscott “The Internet and other new media forms empowers and
centers the learning experience on the individual learner as opposed to those
broadcasting it (the teacher), this centers the learning on the students and allows
them to create rich individualized learning experiences” (Tapscott, mff.org)
Ficek states “While Learning Management Systems like WebCT and Blackboard are
course-centered and largely faculty-driven, Ficek says PLE’s are largely learner-
centered and have four key features: communication and collaboration, formal and
informal learning, flexible roles and structures, and electronic portfolios and
organizers” (Bart/Ficek).
Thompson similarly states that in the web 2.0 age where personal media flourishes
students will arrive expecting a transformative form of education (Thompson).
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9. Paradigm Shift cont.
“The . . . describes are surrounded by digital media to such an
extent that their brain structures may be different from those of
the last generation” (VanSlyke).
These learners described by Bart, Ficek, VanSlyke, and Prensky
all point towards the idea that education is moving towards and/
or needs to move towards delivering learning that is delivered on
a flexible schedule and one that is not already set to a specific
time, place, or learning pace.
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10. From Broadcast to Interactive
Figure 1 - Broadcast Learning to Interactive Learning (source: Coyle)
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11. Web 2.0 Technologies &
Applications
Web 2.0 tools will be an essential asset to assist higher education in
educating and fully engaging the Digital Natives that Prensky and VanSlyke
discuss.
Rapidly changing needs of the 21st century learners need personalized
learning environments (PLE’s)
By no means is this a comprehensive list
Strictly focused on the most important research for using these tools and
technologies in various ways to enhance educational content delivery, and
the overall paradigm shift that takes place due to the use of these
potentially disruptive tools and how they benefit higher education.
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12. Social Bookmarking
Alexander notes that social bookmarking sites such as
del.icio.us facilitate a new kind of collaborative research because
“finding people with related interests can magnify one’s work by
learning from others or by leading to new
collaborations” (Alexander).
Grosek asserts that social bookmarking services form a
collective intelligence and allow users to have a more up-to-date
research and makes it easier to find new and relevant sources.
This creates what Grosek refers to as architecture of
participation. (Grosek).
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13. Collaborative Authoring
Alexander states “Blogs can be used to expand course activities beyond
the four walls of the classroom, so students are writing for a worldwide
audience instead of only for classmates and the instructor. Student
motivation may increase when their writing can be read by thousands
instead of a handful of their peer students” (Alexander).
Ferris and Wilder note that integrating collaborative authoring tools into
coursework is essential “Pedagogigically one can imagine writing
exercises based on these tools, building on the established body of
collaborative composition practice . . . these tools offer an alternative
platform for peer editing, supporting the now traditional elements of
computer mediated writing” (Alexander, Ferris, Wilder).
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14. Collaborative Authoring cont.
Downes states that blogs can be used to have instructors
provide course information and embed URLs to connect course
content (Downes).
Furthermore one of the best examples of employing the use of
web 2.0 tools (especially social bookmarking, collaborative
authoring tools, etc.) would be the web 2.0 pedagogical practice
at a Columbia University course where students study the
capabilities of social bookmarking, wikis, blogs, and other tools
to employ them directly for their own coursework (Mejias)
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15. Collaborative Authoring cont.
They (JISC) found that Wikipedia is very popular with usage
ranging between 70 and 84 percent across all the age groups
included in the survey. They also state that this is mainly the
group of users that are using Wikipedia and wikis to read the
content as opposed to specifically contributing; they also state
that because around 50% of all Wikipedia use is for study
educators and educational institutions must recognize the power
of Wikipedia and teach students how to use it in combination
with other research techniques to gain breadth and depth of
knowledge in a particular subject matter (Faughnan).
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16. Micro-blogging
http://edmodo.com
http://twitter.com
According to Grossek “People use twitter to communicate, ask questions, to
ask for directions, support, advice, and to validate open-ended interpretations
or ideas by discussing with the others” (Grossek).
From AcademHack.com
“Class chatter, to create classroom community, get a sense of the world and
it’s opinion (through the use of twitter’s public timeline), track a word or
content matter, track a conference, obtaining instant feedback, following a
professional or famous person, rule based writing, maximize the teachable
moment, a public notepad, and writing assignments (Twitter for Academia)
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17. Virtual Worlds/MMOG
http://www.bgsu.edu/secondlife/page55976.html
Dodge discusses using Google Earth and SecondLife as well as other
massive multiplayer online games/environments as he uses SecondLife
to teach various graduate level classes; additionally he discusses the
integration of Google Earth with the newly released Ancient Rome 3d
plugins that have 3d renderings and information attached to the buildings
dating back to June 21, 320AD, this is an excellent way for students to
be empowered and to explore geographic regions they may not
physically have the capacity to access, see artifacts that otherwise may
be no longer structurally sound or available today (Dodge).
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18. References
See literature review document available online at:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/9010043/Web-20-Tools-for-Higher-
Education-Literature-Review-by-Brian-J-King
Presentation is available online at slideshare.net
username: brianjking
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