CoSN

Gluttons for Web 2.0

The Consortium for School Networking conference, in Austin, has been the scene of two interesting days of near-constant discussion about Twitter, Facebook, blogging, podcasting, Wikipedia, open content, curriculum wikis, online video games, and smartphones–and how those Web 2.0 tools fit together with the traditional school staples of assessment, curriculum, student privacy and safety, budgets, and so on.

The international symposium on March 10, the first day at CoSN, made clear that the U.S. is not alone in wrestling with those issues. Educators are having the same discussions in Australia, Britain, Singapore, the Scandanavian nations, and undoubtedly many other countries.

One perceptive speaker was Stephen Breslin, a Briton who is the chief executive of Futurelab, a nonprofit group based in Bristol, U.K., that supports innovation in education.

Breslin, on a panel on global perspectives, noted that his own schooling never prepared him on three topics that have proved vital to him in the workplace: the power of conversation, the power of groups, and the power of the network. Schools are ill-equipped to teach those things because they are geared for assessing students individually, he suggested.

But Web 2.0 tools are designed to highlight the educational power of conversation, groups, and the network.

Like other speakers, Breslin acknowledged dangers to children posed by Web 2.0, but said educators should not be paralyzed by fears. People are responding to Web 2.0, just as to earlier digital innovations, “polarized between panic and blind digital faith.” He added, “The answer is balanced in between.”

Students are adopting these tools anyway, at home if not at school. As evidence, he presented a fascinating chart from a 2008 research study by Becta, formally the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency.

The chart showing that students’ are engaging in computer-related activity far more outside than inside school–even for doing schoolwork.

He described examples of how Web-based tools, such as Wikipedia, grew massively after the creators relinquished much of their control of them.  “You can only achieve the scale you need if you relinquish control,” if enough people are keen on creating this shared resource, he said. “Over time there will be enough improvement” in quality.

His advice to school leaders: Reward the innovators; risk-takers will eventually bring  change to the mindsets of others.

That’s all for now. CoSN will finish up today without me, but over the next few days I will post other summaries and tidbits from my observations, though my schedule will be a bit irregular.

© 2009 Digital Education Today.