ICTlogy

Live notes at UOC UNESCO Chair in Elearning Fourth International Seminar: Web 2.0 and Education, held in Barcelona, Spain, 17, 18 and 19 October 2007.

Keynote speech: Phil Long, Assoc. Director of the Office of Educational Innovation and Technology. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA)
Web 2.0 and education: an overall look

Connectivity will be pervasive: everywhere everywhen we’ll be connected.

(Phil Long goes over a good bunch of Web 2.0 apps)

Web 2.0: to leverage the sociability and human characteristics of the web users.

Creation of a notion of a sixth sense: connected to your extended network, your online and offline presences tracked, etc.

Social networking sites really pervasive among youngsters, massively accessed not only through the web but also through mobile phones.

Convergence of different platforms for learning, including new tools such as digital ink, digital ink pens, scanners on mobile phones, Qr-codes for cellulars, etc.

Active learning with iCampus.

• iLab: access real labs through virtual apps, so the student can experience the feeling of interacting with the physical device, without the need of having several (expensive) distributed physical devices installed: It is not a simulation, it is real data.
• MIT Lecture Browser lets you search keywords (text) over lectures (voice, video), find where the keyword was used and then listen or watch the digitized lecture. It’s got a Web 2.0 component where the user can correct sentences that were not properly written, transcribed, linked, etc.

Most learning does not happen inside the bricks and mortar classrooms, but everywhere.

Extend Real Life in Second Life: what can you do in this space that you couldn’t in the physical world?

Educational technologies are not “spectator sport” but “participative sport”.

It is ridiculous that you’ll be teaching students content that they will remember, as it is predicted that content will double every 11 hours by year 2010. You should train them to know where to find, store content, how to access it, how to remix and use it.

Authority and evaluation changing radically.

My comments — his answers

Q: What about attention and engagement? How to keep focus?

A: Are this problems of the Internet, the Web 2.0… or ancient problems? Maybe technology is just making this more visible.

Q: How not to, ironically, increase drop out rates because of more demanding technologies/educational methodologies?

A: I want to be competitive in this environment so that people choose to study my subjects instead of browsing everywhere else. But yes, we have to be aware of the time, attention we require to our students, that might feel like they are drinking from the fire hose. Engagement not at the cost of leaving aside other aspects of life.

More info

• Web 2.0 y educación (I), by Francesc Balagué

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