Group items tagged

Using technology to give students "control of their interactions" has a positive effect on student learning, however. "Studies indicate that manipulations that trigger learner activity or learner reflection and self-monitoring of understanding are effective when students pursue online learning as individuals," the report says.

n noting caveats about the findings, the study returns to the issue of time."Despite what appears to be strong support for online learning applications, the studies in this meta-analysis do not demonstrate that online learning is superior as a medium," the report says. "In many of the studies showing an advantage for online learning, the online and classroom conditions differed in terms of time spent, curriculum and pedagogy. It was the combination of elements in the treatment conditions (which was likely to have included additional learning time and materials as well as additional opportunities for collaboration) that produced the observed learning advantages. At the same time, one should note that online learning is much more conducive to the expansion of learning time than is face-to-face instruction."

" What the study demonstrates, she said, is that colleges need to think broadly about using online education, and not be "artificially limited" to face-to-face instruction.

Successful education has always been about engaging students whether it is in an online environment, face to face or in a blended setting. And fundamental to that is having faculty who are fully supported and engaged in that process as well."

learning management systems (Exhibit 1).

The reality, however, is that today's students demand greater control of their own learning and the inclusion of technologies in ways that meet their needs and preferences (Prensky 2005)

Tools like blogs, wikis, media-sharing applications, and social networking sites can support and encourage informal conversation, dialogue, collaborative content generation, and knowledge sharing, giving learners access to a wide range of ideas and representations. Used appropriately, they promise to make truly learner-centered education a reality by promoting learner agency, autonomy, and engagement in social networks that straddle multiple real and virtual communities by reaching across physical, geographic, institutional, and organizational boundaries.

"I have always imagined the information space as something to which everyone has immediate and intuitive access, and not just to browse, but to create” (2000, 216). Social software tools make it easy to contribute ideas and content, placing the power of media creation and distribution into the hands of "the people formerly known as the audience" (Rosen 2006).

the most promising settings for a pedagogy that capitalizes on the capabilities of these tools are fully online or blended so that students can engage with peers, instructors, and the community in creating and sharing ideas. In this model, some learners engage in creative authorship, producing and manipulating digital images and video clips, tagging them with chosen keywords, and making this content available to peers worldwide through Flickr, MySpace, and YouTube

Student-centered tasks designed by constructivist teachers reach toward this ideal, but they too often lack the dimension of real-world interactivity and community engagement that social software can contribute.

Pedagogy 2.0: Teaching and Learning for the Knowledge Age In striving to achieve these goals, educators need to revisit their conceptualization of teaching and learning (Exhibit 2).

Pedagogy 2.0: Teaching and Learning for the Knowledge Age In striving to achieve these goals, educators need to revisit their conceptualization of teaching and learning

Pedagogy 2.0 is defined by: Content: Microunits that augment thinking and cognition by offering diverse perspectives and representations to learners and learner-generated resources that accrue from students creating, sharing, and revising ideas; Curriculum: Syllabi that are not fixed but dynamic, open to negotiation and learner input, consisting of bite-sized modules that are interdisciplinary in focus and that blend formal and informal learning;Communication: Open, peer-to-peer, multifaceted communication using multiple media types to achieve relevance and clarity;Process: Situated, reflective, integrated thinking processes that are iterative, dynamic, and performance and inquiry based;Resources: Multiple informal and formal sources that are rich in media and global in reach;Scaffolds: Support for students from a network of peers, teachers, experts, and communities; andLearning tasks: Authentic, personalized, learner-driven and learner-designed, experiential tasks that enable learners to create content.

Instructors implementing Pedagogy 2.0 principles will need to work collaboratively with learners to review, edit, and apply quality assurance mechanisms to student work while also drawing on input from the wider community outside the classroom or institution (making use of the "wisdom of crowds” [Surowiecki 2004]).

A small portion of student performance content—if it is new knowledge—will be useful to keep. Most of the student performance content will be generated, then used, and will become stored in places that will never again see the light of day. Yet . . . it is still important to understand that the role of this student content in learning is critical.

This understanding of student-generated content is also consistent with the constructivist view that acknowledges the learner as the chief architect of knowledge building. From this perspective, learners build or negotiate meaning for a concept by being exposed to, analyzing, and critiquing multiple perspectives and by interpreting these perspectives in one or more observed or experienced contexts

This understanding of student-generated content is also consistent with the constructivist view that acknowledges the learner as the chief architect of knowledge building. From this perspective, learners build or negotiate meaning for a concept by being exposed to, analyzing, and critiquing multiple perspectives and by interpreting these perspectives in one or more observed or experienced contexts. In so doing, learners generate their own personal rules and knowledge structures, using them to make sense of their experiences and refining them through interaction and dialogue with others.

Other divides are evident. For example, the social networking site Facebook is now the most heavily trafficked Web site in the United States with over 8 million university students connected across academic communities and institutions worldwide. The majority of Facebook participants are students, and teachers may not feel welcome in these communities. Moreover, recent research has shown that many students perceive teaching staff who use Facebook as lacking credibility as they may present different self-images online than they do in face-to-face situations (Mazer, Murphy, and Simonds 2007). Further, students may perceive instructors' attempts to coopt such social technologies for educational purposes as intrusions into their space. Innovative teachers who wish to adopt social software tools must do so with these attitudes in mind.

"students want to be able to take content from other people. They want to mix it, in new creative ways—to produce it, to publish it, and to distribute it"

Furthermore, although the advent of Web 2.0 and the open-content movement significantly increase the volume of information available to students, many higher education students lack the competencies necessary to navigate and use the overabundance of information available, including the skills required to locate quality sources and assess them for objectivity, reliability, and currency

In combination with appropriate learning strategies, Pedagogy 2.0 can assist students in developing such critical thinking and metacognitive skills (Sener 2007; McLoughlin, Lee, and Chan 2006).

We envision that social technologies coupled with a paradigm of learning focused on knowledge creation and community participation offer the potential for radical and transformational shifts in teaching and learning practices, allowing learners to access peers, experts, and the wider community in ways that enable reflective, self-directed learning.

. By capitalizing on personalization, participation, and content creation, existing and future Pedagogy 2.0 practices can result in educational experiences that are productive, engaging, and community based and that extend the learning landscape far beyond the boundaries of classrooms and educational institutions.

As part of their own intellectual retooling in the era of the media collage, teachers can begin by experimenting with a wide range of new media to determine how they best serve their own and their students' educational interests. A simple video can demonstrate a science process; a blog can generate an organic, integrated discussion about a piece of literature; new media in the form of games, documentaries, and digital stories can inform the study of complex social issues; and so on. Thus, a corollary to this guideline is simply, "Experiment fearlessly." Although experts may claim to understand the pedagogical implications of media, the reality is that media are evolving so quickly that teachers should trust their instincts as they explore what works. We are all learning together.

Both essay writing and blog writing are important, and for that reason, they should support rather than conflict with each other. Essays, such as the one you are reading right now, are suited for detailed argument development, whereas blog writing helps with prioritization, brevity, and clarity. The underlying shift here is one of audience: Only a small portion of readers read essays, whereas a large portion of the public reads Web material. Thus, the pressure is on for students to think and write clearly and precisely if they are to be effective contributors to the collective narrative of the Web.

The demands of digital literacy make clear that both research reports and stories represent important approaches to thinking and communicating; students need to be able to understand and use both forms. One of the more exciting pedagogical frontiers that awaits us is learning how to combine the two, blending the critical thinking of the former with the engagement of the latter. The report–story continuum is rich with opportunity to blend research and storytelling in interesting, effective ways within the domain of new media.

The new media collage depends on a combination of individual and collective thinking and creative endeavor. It requires all of us to express ourselves clearly as individuals, while merging our expression into the domain of public narrative. This can include everything from expecting students to craft a collaborative media collage project in language arts classes to requiring them to contribute to international wikis and collective research projects about global warming with colleagues they have never seen. What is key here is that these are now "normal" kinds of expression that carry over into the world of work and creative personal expression beyond school.

Students need to be media literate to understand how media technique influences perception and thinking. They also need to understand larger social issues that are inextricably linked to digital citizenship, such as security, environmental degradation, digital equity, and living in a multicultural, networked world. We want our students to use technology not only effectively and creatively, but also wisely, to be concerned with not just how to use digital tools, but also when to use them and why.

Fluency is the ability to practice literacy at the advanced levels required for sophisticated communication within social and workplace environments. Digital fluency facilitates the language of leadership and innovation that enables us to translate our ideas into compelling professional practice. The fluent will lead, the literate will follow, and the rest will get left behind.

Digital fluency is much more of a perspective than a technical skill set. Teachers who are truly digitally fluent will blend creativity and innovation into lesson plans, assignments, and projects and understand the role that digital tools can play in creating academic expectations that are authentically connected, both locally and globally, to their students' lives.

Focus on expression first and technology second—and everything will fall into place.