Teaching with Web 2.0

Barbara FreyLorna Kearns

Agenda

• Define Web 2.0• Categorize applications• Describe applications and present

examples of educational use• Identify issues for consideration• Make recommendations

Web 2.0

• Second phase of World Wide Web enabling greater social and participatory use (Anderson, 2007)

• Sometimes used interchangeably with the term “social software”

Angermeier, Markus. Web 2.0 universe map. Licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Germany. Retrieved July 7, 2008 from http://kosmar.de/wp-content/web20map.png

Why Use for Instruction?

• Provides abundance of applications available to anyone with a browser

• Is easy to learn and use• Extends your course management system• Addresses diverse learning styles

Web 2.0 Categories

• Wikis and document sharing

• Blogging and microblogging

• Social bookmarking • Multimedia sharing• Time management• Conferencing

Instructional and administrative uses

Administrative uses

What’s a Wiki?

• Web-based groupware application for:• Creating, editing and hosting HTML pages• Version tracking • Page linking and organization

What You Can Do with a Wiki

• Collaborative glossary for human anatomy class

• Project case library for exemplary computer science student work, used across multiple class sections and multiple semesters

• Repository for architecture course project descriptions for comment by peers and outside experts

(Guzdial, Rick, and Kehoe, 2000)

Forestry 2554

• Wiki from undergraduate Forestry course at Virginia Tech

• Nature and American Values• http://natureamericanvalues.wetpaint.com/

What’s Document Sharing?

• Web-based document editor• Enables collaborative editing• Provides version tracking

What You Can Do with Document Sharing

• Have students collaborate on a group writing assignment

• Encourage students to keep a portfolio of their writing assignments across courses and semesters

What’s a Blog?

• Web log or journal to which you (and others) can post text, images, and hyperlinks

What You Can Do with Blogs

• Reflective journaling in professional education– Medicine (Chretien, Goldman, and Faselis, 2008)

– Nursing (Epp, 2008)

Library and Information Science 2184

• Blog to support graduate level copyright course in Library Science program at Pitt

• Legal Issues in Information Handling: Copyright and Fair Use in the Digital Age

• http://kipcurriercopyright.blogspot.com/

What’s a Microblog?

• Small pieces of digital content posted on the Web

• Text postings of 140 characters maximum• Subscribers follow postings via instant

messaging and/or cell phone

What You Can Do with Microblogs

• Continue class discussion outside of class• Follow a professional journalist’s activities• Have one student begin a story, another continue, and

so on• Follow news feeds on a developing public health issue

(Parry, 2009)

• For language learning:– Have students follow news feeds in target language– Have students tweet in target language

(Scinicariello, 2008)

Receiving Tweets

What is Social Bookmarking?

• Web-based application for storing, organizing, and sharing Web bookmarks

• Lorna’s Delicious bookmarkshttp://www.delicious.com/lornakearns/health_sciences_education

• Barbara’s Scholar bookmarkshttp://scholar.com/userHomepage.dobbb?op=view#

What You Can Do with Bookmarking

• Have students bookmark and tag Web resources that contribute to a class project

• Have students accumulate resources for their own research projects

• Review and provide feedback on bookmarks to help students evaluate usefulness of resources

• Share links to current news items that relate to classroom discussions

What is Multimedia Sharing?

• Web space to which people can post videos, photographs, slides, and podcasts

How You Can Share Multimedia

• Podcasts– Create short podcasts of preparatory material for lectures– Tape lectures and deploy as podcasts– Use as recordings of native speakers for language learning classes

• Videos– Create videos of lab procedures– Create a short introduction video for an online class

• Images– Use image sharing sites for class repository of art work to which

you and other students can add comments and critiques– Use Flickr Commons to find images that are available for free

reuse

(Franklin and van Harmelen, 2007)

SlideShare Example

What are Time Management Tools?

• Calendar sharing• Group appointment scheduling

What You Can Do with Time Management Tools

• Post course activities, deadlines, due dates• Schedule group meetings• Schedule lab sessions

What are Conferencing Tools?

• Applications that use Voice over Internet Protocol

• Use as a telephone• Use as Web conferencing tool

What You Can Do with Conferencing Tools

• Hold virtual office hours• Conduct virtual recitation sessions• Have students coordinate group work

You Are a Pioneer!• Who owns

the copyrights?

• Who makes the backups?

• Who provides technical support?

Image: Gift of Australian Consolidated Press under the Taxation Incentives for the Arts Scheme, 1985. Retrieved September 3, 2009 from http://www.flickr.com/photos/powerhouse_museum/2362700123/

Recommendations

• Consider how the tool supports your learning goals

• Learn about Web 2.0 technologies to see what they have to offer

• Experiment with short assignments• Encourage students to communicate outside

of class and experiment on their own• Evaluate the effectiveness of the assignment

Questions?

Thank you!

Barbara Frey: bafrey@pitt.edu

Lorna Kearns: lrkearns@pitt.edu