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**INTRODUCTION: Using Web 2.0 for** **e-learning, engagement,** **and lifelong learning ** include component="navigation"



//People connecting with people globally ........................ ideas connecting with ideas//

**A personal welcome from Deb Austin and Sue Court**

//**... we invite you to play these two short videos**//

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**Web 2.0**

So what exactly is Web 2.0? This video is a great summary of exactly what it is and how it evolved....we didn't even know there WAS a Web 1.0 until this point.....the more you research the more you learn.

media type="youtube" key="nsa5ZTRJQ5w" height="331" width="443" align="left" "The author Douglas Rushkoff calls a 'society of authorship where every teacher and every student — every person with access — will have the ability to contribute ideas and experiences to the larger body of knowledge that is the Internet. And in doing so ... we will be writing the human story, in real time, together — a vision that asks each of us to participate." (Rushkoff, 2004, Richardson, 2010)

The huge advantage that Web 2.0 offers over Web 1.0, is the interactive space — the ability to //**write**// as well as to //**read**.// Just a few weeks ago, the widely adopted Encyclopedia Britannica had to close down after 244 years of publication, for one reason only: Wikipedia has taken its place because it can offer something that a book-form encyclopedia can never do — it invites anyone in the world to participate in the building of knowledge, and that is hugely empowering. "The encyclopedia's end adds to a trend that is seeing newspapers, magazines, books and journals turn into online URL addresses almost daily." (http://edition.cnn.com/2012/04/06/us/encyclopedia-britannica/). And while many will mourn the lose of a magnificent collection of printed references, the paperless society is here. Newspapers are feeling the change also.

But this new world offers us so many advantages. Here are just a few:
 * information available readily and quickly
 * open access to material once confined to libraries and archives and those who knew how to access them
 * education available across and within national boundaries
 * the ability to respond to that information immediately and to get responses back.
 * huge possibilities for creativity and fun learning

**Parallel Streams for Enquiry**

We have three focal points for our discussion on **Web 2.0** tools. As educators ourselves, we are especially interested in these three questions: // **First.** //What does educational theory have to say about using resources from **Web 2.0** as educational tools? What does it say about their purpose, their relevance to **e-learning**, and their effectiveness. What are the limitations of web tools? // **Second.** //How does the teacher become the student through exploration of **Web 2.0** tools? As educators we are both passionate about our own **life-long learning**, and on the flip side of that coin, we want to think of ways of helping mature students — especially those who teach others — to become the student. // **Third.** // How can students become more **engaged** in their own learning through **Web 2.0**, and how can teachers become more **engaged** in the discovery of learning tools available on the web?

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**//Interactivity//.** We are using an interactive resource to write our assignment - a **wiki** - to help us develop our ideas together, so that we know how to offer interactive methods and technologies to our students. We recognise one of the strengths of the web as the ability to use resources interactively. The web is not linear, and we realise that our previous linear approaches to teaching and learning are no longer relevant in a **Web 2.0** world. The three examples of **wikis, blogs** and **tubes** will by themselves demonstrate our enthusiasm for the interactive powers of these tools.=====
 * 1) =====[[image:Horse_&_Cart_-_Leeds.jpg width="524" height="396" align="left" caption="©Copyright 2007-2012 Leeds Parish Council"]] **//Non-threatening learning environment////.//** In our own teaching and leadership in the university environment we want to take the fear out of using **Web 2.0** for teaching and learning. We see that fear more in the teachers than the students, and of course we have experienced it ourselves. We believe that there is no putting back the genie into the bottle. We can't ignore our digitally driven environment, and to try to avoid using it, or to use as little as possible (just enough to satisfy our employers perhaps) is an unfortunate attitude that breeds bitterness and ignorance. We are discovering that using the web can be fun and the resources are nearly limitless, but we see that so many academics are frightened of fully utilizing the web for teaching resources. They want to hold on to the old ways of doing things because they feel safe with tradition. However, the young students come into the learning space as **digital natives** and are not afraid to use whatever is available. I like to think back to the time, only a short century or so ago, when the car was introduced. Once it ceased to be a novelty and gained widespread acceptance there must have been those who mourned the passing of the horse and cart. But eventually those sentiments had to give way — and you don't see too many horse and carts on the road these days other than for tourism. However (fortunately, for horse-crazy people like myself), the horse has survived because people have ensured that it is around for pleasure activities of all sorts. The same will happen to books, but as far as education is concerned, we all need to get on the digital highway or we will be over-run. What we are finding doing this assignment, and studying the course generally, is that it is not frightening once you get into it. The only frightening thing about the web is the feeling of looking in at it without understanding what is going on.=====

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**//Free (almost) tools//.** What are the new resources in **Web 2.0** that are useful for teaching and learning? There are so many, and millions of dollars are spent in education buying clever new software packages. With the possible exception of an **e-learning software platform** such as Blackboard or Moodle to enable uniform delivery of courses from an institution, there is little need to buy expensive software to access information to to enable interaction with and between students. A little bit of exploration reveals that there is a huge resource of software on the web, made freely available. This **wiki** for instance is entirely free if we don't mind opening it up to whoever in the world might like to see us develop it, some of whom may choose to add to our discussion. (We are not ready for that just yet, but Wikispaces allows 30 days free use if you want to keep it private, after which we will either let it go once the assignment is assessed!). Alternatively we can pay a little each month to keep the facility going. Some free **wiki** and **blog** providers open up to advertisers which can be very annoying (as we discovered in our first few attempts) but these sorts of providers can be avoided without needed to buy into a large corporate software package to do the same job.=====

**//Life-long learning.//** How can **Web 2.0** tools assist with **life-long learning**? Can we anticipate whether the future iterations of the web will enable learners today to support their own life-long learning? Are we investing in the right tools for teaching and learning? What we have discovered in our journey so far, is that there are so many resources for self-driven education, that there is no limit to how far **life-long learning** can be taken. Not only are there millions of **blogs, wikis, databases, libraries** and **websites** etc. for people to explore their subject of choice, it is possible to enroll in any course imaginable in universities and colleges around the world. And, it is also possible to do so for free! One of the most incredible tools for **life-long learning** is **itunesU** where you can enrol in a university course for free. The only downside is that sometimes you have to buy the particular textbook through the website, or you might not get the full course. But this is not always the case, and anyway, buying a textbook once you know it's the knowledge you want is not impossible for most people. And there are also educators out there who have decided to disassociate themselves from a university, in order to offer something entirely free — and they do this simply because they are passionate about passing on what they know (mixed in with personal frustration with how long it can take to get universities to take on anything really new!). **Udacity** is a perfect example of this (see Glossary), and maybe this is the future of e-learning. Will we continue to need universities as we have in the past? The future will unravel in an interesting and unpredictable way!

http://www.apple.com/education/itunes-u/ http://www.udacity.com/

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