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).
