- Services, not packaged software, with cost-effective scalability
- Control over unique, hard-to-recreate data sources that get richer as more people use them
- Trusting users as co-developers
- Harnessing collective intelligence
- Leveraging the long tail through customer self-service
- Software above the level of a single device
- Lightweight user interfaces, development models, AND business models
I recognize that some of our students (indeed, many of our immigrant students) may not share the common experience of daily usage of these internet programs, but I think given the dominance of these programs in our society, it is perhaps even more important that we incorporate Web 2.0 applications in our classroom curriculum to increase the opportunities for them to work with these programs. The interactive nature of 2.0 also means that teachers can design assignments and projects that require students to work together using technology that is at the forefront of innovation, and that can appeal to multiple learning styles represented in our classrooms. We can manipulate images and audio to form interactive content that students can then respond to, which increases the variety of approaches we use to teach content - always a positive thing when it comes to teaching!
Very nice! You have caught on to the concept that Web 2.0 has veered away from the presentational model of provider and consumer and toward a collaborative co-constructive model in which users work together to produce content. The fascination and occupation with the technology may not be sufficient reason to use it in an educational context: many students don't want their teachers encroaching on their Facebook space, for example. And because it is sparkling and cutting edge may not be enough. What is more important is what you point out in the last paragraph: that students can use this technology to work together, appealing to a variety of learning styles. The flexibility and user-centeredness of Web 2.0 technology puts the students at the forefront and allows for experimentation, elaboration, cooperation, and collaborative development. If interaction is essential to second language acquisition, these technologies bring us much further along the path to facilitate that interaction and therefore that acquisition. Rather than solely relying on the interpretive mode (reading, listening), the technologies address all three modes in a variety of ways -- enabling students to present themselves and their ideas easily (YouTube, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts); to interact with one another and with the target language speaking community (Blogs, Facebook, Skype, Chat) as well as to interpret -- read and listen both in the service of understanding and interactively in terms of negotiating meaning. The possibility of varying our approaches is indeed growing!
ReplyDelete