ICTlogy

My colleagues Ana Rodera, Anna Espasa and Teresa Guasch asked me to answer a survey in the framework of the eLene2Learn research project.

Amongst all the questions, there were two the answers I provided I would like to keep… and share. I answered quite quickly and they come here in the rough. I am sure a thorough reflection would present more accurate thoughts, but I don’t think the general idea would change a lot:

What are the main advantages of teaching-learning using social web technologies?

• More control on the learning process by the learners themselves.
• More focus on the learning part, trading with a lesser weight on the teaching part.
• Increased importance of the learning process, with decreased (relative) importance of the content in the syllabus.
• Opening of the formal learning processes towards scenarios belonging to the scope of non-formal learning and, especially, of informal learning.
• Dramatic increase of the learning resources (content, experts, tools) at the learners’ reach.
• Merging (and confusion) of the different areas of life: learning, professional, personal, leisure.

What are the main disadvantages of teaching-learning using social web technologies?

• They demand high (or highest) digital competences. These are a must to make the best of social web technologies and an important barrier of entrance.
• They require a certain knowledge in identifying one’s training and educational needs and being able to formulate them as such.
• They require a certain capacity to design (autonomous) learning strategies.
• Abundance of resources imply that filtering becomes necessary and, thus, filtering competences are important.
• Even with the appropriate filtering competences, noise and distraction will happen.
• Merging (and confusion) of the different areas of life: learning, professional, personal, leisure (indeed, this is a double edged sword).

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