In recent years, there is a big change regarding e-learning and Web 2.0 as a social learning tool. Many educators and administrators have been showing the tendency of thinking out of the box that education should occur in a classroom and they are trying to use social media as learning tools.
One of the biggest changes made in few years is that young students have been using social web sites such as Twitter or Fackbook using their computers or smart phones or tablets to communicate with their friends. They are not just absorbing information that is portal sites are providing, but rather they create something and post it in their blog and they listen to others feedback and respond back to it. Twitter or Facebook does not have their own content in it, but they provide an environment that user can make their own content by themselves and interact with others. By communicating with others, users can obtain new knowledge and deliver it to others effectively. These activities can be one of the forms of learning and education. But, we need to know it that the Internet is still changing and Web 2.0 will be evolved into 3.0 and 4.0, therefore, educators should care about the change of the e-learning environments to keep up with it and adjust to it to provide effective learning opportunities to young learners.
Just to play devils advocate :)
ReplyDeleteAs a public school teacher, we have blocked students access to things like facebook, myspace, twitter, and pretty much every blog out there. As teachers, we are supposed to find a way to connect with our students while still teaching them, get them to use technology in their learning, but we block all the ways that they use it? Our students can't even get on YouTube! As a teacher, how am I supposed to integrate all this technology and new technology that is coming out that my student use, when our district doesn't allow them to access any of it from school?