Web 2.0 in the Schools

Web 2.0, or interactive programs/software that permit people to personalize their internet experiences, have had a great impact on how people communicate in the public domain. This technology, which includes blogs, wikis, and social networking sites, is also present in the classroom. As educators integrate Web 2.0 into their classrooms, two primary questions have emerged. First, what is the most effective way to use the technology with students? Second, how is the technology impacting knowledge construction. Although no definitive answers are yet available, this article provides a brief overview of the tentative conclusions educators are making as they experiment with new online tools and texts.

Keywords: Asynchronous Discussion; Blogs; Chat; Collaborative Learning; Discussion Board; Intertextuality; Knowledge Construction; Online Writing; Podcasts; Social Networking; Synchronous Discussions; Trackbacks; Web 2.0; Wikis

Overview

Visit a kindergarten classroom today and one could very well hear five-year-olds bragging about how many hits they have on their latest blog post or maybe watch as they send instant messages to their fourth grade study buddies. In fact, hang out with kindergarteners — or kids at any grade level — long enough, and one is likely to witness many innovations in writing technology being put to an array of educational uses.

Web 2.0, the term used to describe interactive programs/software that allow people to personalize their internet experiences, has already had a great impact in the public sphere. By allowing and inviting millions of new voices into publicly connected conversations, Web 2.0, which include blogs, wikis, and social networking sites, have reshaped and democratized public discourse. No longer do a few talking heads and a cadre of gatekeeping journalists solely determine what the public sees, hears, and talks about. Now the public, including anyone around the world with access to a computer and an Internet connection, is free to thrust its voice into the fray of debate and expect to be heard.

The technology that inspired the revolution of public discourse has also entered the classroom, and the result, as one might expect, is producing a sea change in the way educators think about writing, collaboration, interaction, creativity, and knowledge construction. Two main categories of impact are emerging. The first is related to the application of the technology. How can educators best incorporate new online tools so that their students get the most benefit? The second is regarding the impact of the online writing environment on knowledge construction. In other words, how does the use of new technologies impact the way we understand writers, readers, and the texts and/or knowledge they create.

The answers to these questions are far from resolved. Technology is changing at dizzying speeds; new tools and ideas for using them can appear and disappear before teachers have a chance to implement them. Furthermore, the rapid pace at which new forms of text are being produced means few researchers have had adequate time to study the associated impacts on readers and writers or their writing processes. Thus, discussions of Web 2.0 technology use in education can leave one with an unsettled feeling. Obviously, the nexus of change is here. The technology is already available, and it will be put to use. But what writing will be in the future and the forms it will take is still somewhat murky. Therefore, educators are faced with the task — as they often are — of blending old concepts and skills with new technologies and ideas. In this process, they become part of the change that is reshaping the future.

Applications

Blogs, Wikis, Networks, & Podcasts

The core technologies having an impact in the classroom are those that allow students to produce texts — either oral or written — and share them online. The most popular of these include blogs, wikis, social networking sites, podcasts, and video sharing services such as YouTube. While teachers and instructors are experimenting with all of these tools, attempting to determine which are appropriate and effective for their students, blogs and wikis seem to be two of the most popular.

Blogs (a shortened name for "weblog") have been characterized as "online public diaries." (Fernheimer & Nelson, 2009). Technically, they are spaces where individuals can post multiple written comments that are then presented in reverse chronological order. Individuals can enable their blog readers to comment on their posts, and a number of additional tools, such as trackbacks and blog rolls, allow bloggers to connect their blogs to one another, creating a community of readers and respondents. While blogs began in the 1990s as a way for those with knowledge of the Internet to post information about useful sites by listing links, improvements in technology quickly gave them a new purpose. Blogs became more personal in nature as individuals began writing about their daily activities or commenting on public events. Today, blogs remain individually produced texts with readers allowed to make comments on the text but not to change it (Black, 2006).

Wikis, on the other hand, are collaboratively produced websites that permit anyone with access to the site to modify the content. Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org/) is probably the most well known wiki. This is an Internet encyclopedia that allows anyone to update content on the site. Most wikis require the use of a simple text editing system although sites like have created wiki technology that provides simple point and click editing. A popular feature of wikis is that changes in the wiki can be easily tracked and earlier versions of a wiki can be reverted to in the event of unintentional loss.

Wikis and blogs are being used in the classroom to help students develop writing skills and demonstrate knowledge. Students use wikis to create group reports and for online writing workshops where drafts can be posted for review and feedback (Morgan & Smith, 2008). One common arrangement with blogs is for each student to have a blog that links to a classroom blog. Teachers post topics of discussion and links to relevant information on the class blog and then invite (or require) students to respond through their own blog and comments on those of their classmates. The theoretical benefit of this activity is that students will develop their critical reading and thinking skills as a result of giving and receiving feedback in an authentic writing situation. Black (2006) provides an example of this kind of use. He suggests that law school professors use the main blog to post new legislation and court decisions as well as related news articles, blogs, and websites. As students comment on the unit material and reflect on the opinions of their classmates, they will revisit and revise their understanding of learned concepts and sharpen their critical thinking, analytical, reflective, and collaborative skills (Black, 2006).

Some teachers ask students to explore the blogosphere (a collection of blogs) as a way to gain insight into other cultures or to read a variety of opinions on a chosen controversial topic. In one project, university German and French students read blogs written by native speakers of the target language for a semester, recording new vocabulary and giving class reports on their chosen blogger. In the second semester, students became the bloggers, writing in the target language on topics related to classroom instruction and responding to each other's work through blog comments (Ducate & Lomicka, 2008). In a first-year composition class, students were required to read and critique the rhetorical style that several well known political figures used in their blogs. The goal was for the students, in their role of audience, to interpret and critique the writers. However, in the blogosphere, readers and writers quickly change roles. In this instance, both the instructor and the students were surprised when the subjects of the critique learned of the assignment through their trackbacks and chose to respond to the assignments themselves. The instructor used the incident to discuss the importance of audience awareness, a key concept in rhetoric and composition (Tryon, 2006).

Audience

For lessons using blogs, the presence of the audience presents benefits and challenges. The positive perspective is that having an interested audience is a strong motivator for many writers. This makes sense from a social constructivist position. From this perspective, writing is a social act, and words are meant to be read (Fernheimer & Nelson, 2005). In blogging, students know their work can be read by the world at large and this should motivate them to choose their words carefully and to write more. In many classrooms, especially those of the youngest writers, this appears to be true. In one elementary classroom, for example, emerging writers are excited to write in their blogs because they are paired with a preservice teacher who sends them regular feedback. Children also look forward to receiving comments from friends and family (Cassidy, 2008).

The challenge posed by audience, however, is that some audiences are more authentic than others. While students in the composition classroom became engaged in their discussions with the professional writers who responded to their critiques, students in the foreign language classroom indicated that the blog comments of their classmates were boring. While they enjoyed reading the works of the bloggers they followed in the blogosphere, they found they were less inspired by their classmates' work. Other instructors have noted a similar student reaction to classroom blogs that required students to write on specific topics. Dawson (2007) writes that she was disappointed by her students' responses to blogging assignments. "With few exceptions, the blogs would sit inactive until about 24 hours before our face-to-face class meetings (or 24 hours before the assignments were due in my online class), when a flurry of posts and comments would erupt. Then I would spend an excessive amount of time reading and commenting in the hours before class. Some students did the same, while others didn't bother to comment at all" (p. 1). She adds that few students continued posting in their blogs after the course ended, indicating little authentic engagement with the form.

Classroom Blogs versus Personal Blogs

One possible reason for the lackadaisical response by older students to classroom blogs is that older students (adolescents through college) have been the primary users of blogs in the "real world." A study in 2003 by the Perseus Development Group (2003) found that 92.4 percent of all blogs were created by those thirty years old and younger. An Educause Report found that 28 percent of college students are bloggers compared to 7 percent of adults in the general population (Salaway & Caruso, 2007). By 2010, those in the twenty-one to thirty-five age group accounted for 53.3 percent of all bloggers. Bloggers twenty-years-old and younger were 20.2 percent of the blogging population (Sysomos Inc., 2010).

Adolescent bloggers tend to prefer social blogging — using the blog to stay in touch with friends and family, arrange social gatherings, and maintain a social community (Nackerud & Scaltetta, 2008). Unlike professors, who may envision blogs as forums for presenting polished pieces of writing, adolescents tend to see blogs as personal and experimental spaces where a free range of thought is the norm. Thus, they may find required response to a prompt to be both unnatural and uninteresting compared to their personal blogs (Nackerud & Scaltetta, 2008).

The challenge for educators is to determine what kinds of blogs and associated activities will inspire students to interact in a meaningful way with their classmates. Fernheimer and Nelson (2005) contend that educators should use students' motivation to write expressively to challenge them to explore the more social, interactive, and collaborative potential of blogs. This can be accomplished, they believe, by creating a classroom virtual space that is governed by clearly articulated and enforced rules. In their college literature and composition classes, they deliberately plan and model for students the kind of academic exchange they expect students to engage in when blogging. These expectations include that students will read and acknowledge other writers' opinions in their own blog. Without teaching and modeling these expectations, students may not understand how classroom blogging should be different from personal blogging. This misunderstanding can lead students to produce non-interactive, non-collaborative writing, which is more typical of the personal, expressivist uses of blogs with which students are already familiar.

Discourse

While there is no doubt that more students are using Web 2.0 either as a component of an otherwise traditional class or as part of a class that is taught online, there are questions about what students are learning as a result of using this technology. Research and anecdotal experiences indicate that Web 2.0 changes the way individuals construct knowledge (Caverly & Ward, 2008; Lea, 2001; Gerben, 2009). This seems to occur in part because the technology distributes the control of the learning process and responsibility for learning differently than a traditional classroom (Kilgore, 2004). Additionally, the texts that are produced in these environments are very different. Like conversations, they allow multiple voices to enter and leave an ongoing, fluid discussion, shifting topics and direction over time. Like print media, they maintain a permanent record of ideas, allowing for reflection on statements that might have been otherwise lost in a face-to-face conversation. Where one begins to interact with the text — at the beginning of a conversation or half way to the end — impacts how one understands the knowledge produced by the exchanges (Gerben, 2009). To add to all of this, online texts look different. They frequently use more visuals than traditional print media, and their inclusion of hyperlinks increases their intertexuality (Luce-Kaplen, 2007). To effectively create or interpret these texts requires new literacy skills including the ability to read nonlinearily, to synthesize sources, and to understand how visuals can augment the written word (Barone & Wright, 2008). Students without these skills may not be developing knowledge the way instructors intend.

Online Discussions

To understand the process of knowledge construction within the online environment, researchers have begun to examine the collaborative texts that are produced as participants engage in online discussion. Online discussions offer a good way to evaluate this process because it is generally accepted that knowledge is constructed when individuals explore issues, take and defend positions, and then reflect upon and reevaluate those positions based on contradicting evidence (Skinner, 2007). In a face-to-face classroom, this process occurs through classroom discussions facilitated by an instructor. An online discussion, especially one undertaken for educational purposes, such as an online course, is supposed to substitute for these spoken interchanges. Thus, it offers a promising ground for examining the kind of knowledge generated by Web 2.0 experiences.

Asynchronous & Synchronous Discussions

Online discussions come in two basic forms: asynchronous and synchronous. Asynchronous discussions are those that do not occur in real time. Discussion boards that allow threaded discussions are an example of this form of discussion. In a discussion board, several topics are available and individuals can post comments to each topic separately at any time. Synchronous discussions are similar to face-to-face conversations. They occur in real time, such as video-conferencing or online chat (where participants post text that is immediately read by a user on another computer).

Both forms of discussion have been used as part of online learning courses, and each has positive and negative attributes for contributing to knowledge construction. Synchronous discussions, because they occur in real time, are most like face-to-face classroom discussion. Participants interacting within the same time space are able to immediately receive response to their comments and questions. Furthermore, just as in face-to-face conversation, the ideas presented may be fragmented or incomplete, allowing respondents more freedom to interpret what participants mean, thereby facilitating the processes important to individual meaning making. On the other hand, some synchronous discussions, especially online chat, do not appear to create the feeling of community that is necessary for fostering deep knowledge construction. The obstacles to community building include that the contributions to an online chat discussion often occur out of sync, creating a disjointed feeling that prevents negotiation of meaning; that people who are not good typists may be left out of the conversation; and that too many participants in the discussion can make the speed at which comments are made overwhelming (Bober & Dennen, 2001).

Asynchronous conversations, some have argued, are more conducive to knowledge construction because they allow users time to think before responding. In an asynchronous discussion, participants read and respond at their convenience, meaning hours, days, weeks or even months can pass between responses. Lea (2001) argues that this lag time allows for more reflexive learning. She cites students who indicated that writing in an online conference made them solidify their thinking before responding because they had time to think and understanding that the response would last forever made them more careful. An additional benefit of these discussions is that they provide a way for shy students to respond, increasing the feeling of community building necessary for advanced negotiation of and co-construction of meaning (Bober & Dennen, 2001).

However, asynchronous discussions have been faulted for some of these same traits. Several studies have indicated that developing mutual understanding in an asynchronous environment is more difficult because individuals have the ability to ignore some messages in the conversation and because the responses occur over a range of time, making following a single train of thought difficult (Bober & Dennen, 2001; Skinner, 2007). Moreover, some students entering these discussions at their midpoint found them overwhelming due to the large number of messages they had to read in order to catch up with the conversation. These characteristics can make the discussion unsatisfying for some participants, and can prohibit knowledge construction because existing paradigms are more likely to remain unchanged (Skinner, 2007).

While it might be tempting to fault the format of the discussion or the medium in which it occurs, research seems to indicate that the controlling factor in whether knowledge is constructed in the online environment is the instructor. When instructors take the time to engage students in developing a sense of shared purpose and to intervene at crucial points during the online discussion (e.g., to provide corrective feedback or information), students are more likely to find the discussion satisfying and to reach higher levels of knowledge construction (Skinner, 2007; Fernheimer & Nelson, 2005). Thus, it would appear that while new technologies are impacting education, they are not replacing the need for skilled and knowledgeable educators.

Web 2.0 has brought many changes to the world and is now affecting the classroom. While advances in this technology are still being developed and tested, it is clear that the new technologies are changing the way students and teachers approach learning. At this point in time, the most pressing questions for teachers and researchers are how to most effectively integrate the technology and how integration will impact students' knowledge construction. As answers to these questions are still being explored, teachers continue to experiment with various options. In so doing, they bring new skills to their students in the hope that they will be prepared for the future.

Terms & Concepts

Asynchronous Discussion: An asynchronous discussion does not occur in real time. Discussion boards, where people's responses can be made hours, days or months apart, offer an example of an asynchronous discussion.

Blog: A blog is an online writing tool that allows an individual to post multiple written comments that are then published in reverse chronological order on the Internet.

Chat: Chat is a form of online discussion that takes places in real-time. Multiple users can post comments to the chat discussion at the same time.

Discussion Board: A discussion board is an online discussion tool where writers post questions and comments under individual categories or threads. Respondents can respond at any time to the thread.

Intertextuality: Intertextuality refers to how a text is influenced by other texts.

Podcast: A podcast is an online broadcast or collection of broadcasts covering any topic of interest to the broadcaster.

Social Networking Sites: Social networking sites are sites that allow people to keep in touch with one another through the Internet. Popular sites like Facebook and Twitter incorporate photo uploading, file sharing, or chat features.

Synchronous Discussions: Synchronous discussions are online discussions that occur in real-time, meaning participants must be online at the same time to participate. Chat is an example of synchronous discussion.

Trackbacks: Trackbacks are tools that allow bloggers to notify someone when they link to another blogger's blog or to be notified when someone else links to theirs.

Wikis:

Wikis are websites that allow anyone with access to the site to add or change the content.

Bibliography

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Suggested Reading

Burrows, T. (2007). Blogs, wikis, MySpace, and more: Everything you want to know about web 2.0 but are afraid to ask. Chicago: Chicago Review Press.

Capo, B., & Orellana, A. (2011). Web 2.0 Technologies For Classroom Instruction: High school teachers' perceptions and adoption factors. Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 12, 235–253. Retrieved December 20, 2013, from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=78098493

Fernheimer, J.W., & Nelson, T.J. (2005). Bridging the composition divide: Blog pedagogy and the potential for agonistic classrooms. Currents in Electronic Literacy, 9. Retrieved June 23, 2009, from http://currents.cwrl.utexas.edu/fall05/fernheimernelson.html.

McCoy, L. R. (2014). Web 2.0 in the mathematics classroom. Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School, 20, 237-242. Retrieved November 15, 2014, from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=99414588

Richardson, W. (2009). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Tunks, K. W. (2012). An introduction and guide to enhancing online instruction with web 2.0 tools. Journal of Educators Online, 9, 1–16. Retrieved December 20, 2013, from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=78304804