E+-+sections

E - What information and communication tools should be part of the 'suite' of tools made available to students or accessed by students through web-based tools? How has the move to Web 2.0 changed the notion of 'ease of use'?

Web2.0 has been touted and promoted as the next stage of the Internet. It essentially attempts to create a transparent, collaborative environment that allows users to create, view, discuss, blog, interact any time anyplace. The general population is tuned in and familiar with these technologies on some type of level. However the applications are constantly changing and new versions keep appearing. Any suite of tools should include tutorials and the tools themselves should be used, easy to use, and available.

 Stephen Downes (2005) contends that, "[e]nter Web 2.0, a vision of the Web in which information is broken up into "microcontent" units that can be distributed over dozens of domains. The Web of documents has morphed into a Web of data. We are no longer just looking to the same old sources for information. Now we're looking to a new set of tools to aggregate and remix microcontent in new and useful ways". In a nutshell, what was happening was that the Web was shifting from being a medium, in which information was transmitted and consumed, into being a platform, in which content was created, shared, remixed, repurposed, and passed along. And what people were doing with the Web was not merely reading books, listening to the radio or watching TV, but having a conversation, with a vocabulary consisting not just of words but of images, video, multimedia and whatever they could get their hands on. And this became, and looked like, and behaved like, __[|a network]__.

Traditional LMS (Learning Management Systems) are likely to be used and transformed as Web 2.0 progresses. Most LMS platforms like Blackboard or Moodle already contain interactive quiz and examination tools as well as collaborative features like chat rooms, discussion forums, and email. Assuming that majority of the new Web 2.0 student demographic is comfortable with using the web as a collaborative, creative and co-authoring tool, educational institutions should incorporate more of the newly emerging tools into the LMS platforms. The concept of Web 2.0 as a transition from passive to active suggests that students would have the opportunity create learning material, similarly to our MALAT LRNT 503 Shared Resource Wiki site. Furthermore, Web 2.0 users' tendency to actively contribute to content is a demonstration of the learner-centred approach, which educational institutions have been promoting for some time now. The idea that "[l]earing is something done //by// the learner rather than something done //to// or //for// the learner" (MacKeracher, 2004, p.5) aligns with the new development on the web.

Usluel, Y.K., and Mazman, S.G. (2009), follow a similar line of thinking with using Web 2.0 tools in distance education models in that importance should be placed on the interactive tools such as blogs, wikis, podcasts, and social networks. The interaction between learners is important for knowledge sharing and construction. The enhanced interaction between the learner and instructor is also important for the increased contact (although not face to face)that the tools provide.

What evidence exists that discussion forums, chats, and other Web 2.0 tools are effective as learning tools? It was highly recommended by my colleagues experienced in online delivery of courses that discussion forums be included as a structured piece of any online delivered course. It was also recommended that chats were too time consuming for an instructor to participate in such an activity. Web 2.0 tools did not even register into the conversation, perhaps because these initial discussions took place at least 4 years ago before Web 2.0 became mainstream.

Vonderwell (2003) analyzed asynchronous communication in online courses and concluded that discussion forums were positive tools because students felt somewhat “anonymous” and could create an online persona that they did not feel comfortable with in a F2F environment. Students also liked that they had the time to write down their thoughts into reasoned arguments although it was challenging to put down what they were thinking into something coherent. On the other hand, some students commented that unless it was mandatory, there was hesitation to interact in this way and that there was no obligation to answer questions posed by other students. We are experiencing this right now in LRNT503 with the recent discussions in the optional resource discussion where one student asked “Where are the introverts?” to try to understand why everyone wasn’t participating in that forum.

Vonderwall (2003) concluded that the negatives could sufficiently be overcome through adequate instructions and course structure on the part of the instructor and that overall, an asynchronous discussion forum is a positive feature of an online course.

Ajjan & Hartshorne (2008), looked into faculty decisions to adopt Web 2.0 technologies and found that while student use of these technologies were widely prevalent, few faculty chose to use them in the classroom. 62% did not use nor did they plan to and only a 18% planned to use them in the near future. A positive finding, however, indicated that most faculty felt that the inclusion of wikis, blogs and other tools could be effective means of increasing course satisfaction and increasing learning through collaborative means.