Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Big Questions About Web 2.0 in Education

Thursday, September 6th, at the Office 2.0 Conference in San Francisco, there will be a panel discussion on "Classroom 2.0" and the use of Web 2.0 software in education. A wiki with the panel members and more information is here.

As preparation for the panel, an Office 2.0 Conference group in our Classroom 2.0 social network has been formed to allow for the discussion of ten possible panel topics. We will be encouraging the Office 2.0 Conference attendees to join the group and participate in the discussions during and after the conference. We believe that some in the edublogosphere will be interested as well, and hope you will contribute your wisdom! The discussions have been placed in a group in order not to overwhelm the regular Classroom 2.0 dialog.

Here are links to the forum discussions in that group:
1. Is Web 2.0 a good fit for education?
2. Is Web 2.0 significant to future student achievement, workplace skills, information literacy, and digital citizenship?
3. Do we need to start teaching "digital citizenship?"
4. Are the formal structure of education changing because of online learning, and what roles can Web 2.0 software play in those changes?
5. Technology decision-making in schools: The divide between IT and the classroom, and why is it so hard to implement new technologies in education?
6. How much commercialization should be allowed in the classroom and in the school?
7. The conflict between school security issues and the innovative technologies of Web 2.0
8. Publicly shared lives: how transparent should students lives be, and is it appropriate for students to be "clickable?"
9. The training gap: professional development and rapid technological change. How do we train a huge workforce in skills that are just being understood?
10. How important is equitable access to technology, and do the tools of Web 2.0 change that?

(cross-posted from www.SteveHargadon.com)

5 comments:

  1. I'm impressed with the speakers at the conference but was surprised that there are no educators listed. This is a critical discussion that greatly impacts the world of education, K-12 and beyond.

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  2. It's something significant that this conference would allow us some time to talk about education, but I think we would all agree that a broader educational forum for these discussions would be good. The larger ed tech shows are beginning to have them, but one thing many of us are wondering is when there will be enough critical mass for a "Classroom 2.0" conference.

    The makeup of the panel reflects, to some degree, the audience who will be at this particular conference: vendors and businesspeople. We've been over this many times amongst ourselves, and have come to the conclusion that it won't be the discussions of pedagogy that will engage at this conference, but how technology decisions are made in the school setting. (Which is part of a larger discussion about the gulf that exists in that regard, many might agree.)

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  3. I would enjoy hearing about this experience. Can you provide us with a summation, please?

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  4. The whole topic of web 2.0 needs to be more a prominent part of all education conferences and discussions. There is far too much misunderstood by those who are dictating ed-tech policy in our schools, many of whom have no pediglgical knowledge or understanding.

    P.S Anonymous looks like an Asian version of the spam I see on my blog -delete it!

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