Friday, October 18, 2013

Week 3 reflections - Web 2.0 and constructivism

It was great to explore and learn about the education-related Web 2.0 tools! 
I decided to select something related to research or information, so I looked at Reddit.com.  I have heard this quoted as a source of information and it seems to exemplify the 'crowd sourcing' aspects of Web 2.0, where the crowd gets to vote to rank posts as valuable or not.
What I learned from the online group discuss and the tools shared by classmates, is that I had a narrow view of Web 2.0 .  I now see that that the emphasis does not have to be on appealing to the crowd.  The education-related sites/tools allow the collaboration,  communication  and creativity (self-publishing) without the focus on popularity.  I also now recognize that Web 2.0 tools foster constructivist learning by allowing participants, authors and lurkers, to share,  build on and apply their experiences and creations. 

editorial comment: 
The article on why and how to use Web 2.0 collaborative tools in schools has a lot of great ideas.  It is unfortunate the school libraries are an endangered species in California schools.  The types of supplemental and curriculum-related activities described in the article would certainly benefit the students and teachers at these schools and foster essential information and technology literacy skills.

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