"Web 2.0 Is the Future of Education"

„I believe that the read/write Web, or what we are calling Web 2.0, will culturally, socially, intellectually, and politically have a greater impact than the advent of the printing press. I believe that we cannot even begin to imagine the changes that are going to take place as the two-way nature of the Internet begins to flower, and that even those of us who have spent time imagining this future will be astounded by what happens.“

Steve Hargadon

The new Web, or Web 2.0, is a two-way medium, based on contribution, creation, and collaboration–often requiring only access to the Web and a browser. Blogs, wikis, podcasting, video/photo-sharing, social networking, and any of the hundreds (thousands?) of software services preceded by the words „social“ or „collaborative“ are changing how and why content is created.

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The publishing revolution will have an impact on the sheer volume of content available to us that is hard to even comprehend. If fewer than 1% of the users of Wikipedia actually contribute to it, what will happen when 10% do? Or 20%? There are over 100,000 blogs created daily, and MySpace alone has something over 375,000 new users (content creators) every day. We must figure out what information to give our time and attention to when we are engulfed by it. Web 2.0 is the cause of what can only be called a flood of content–and while we don't know what the solutions will be to the information dilemma, we can be pretty sure they will be brought forth from the collaborative web itself.

Amazon.com is for me the great example of how participation has become integral to an industry, and in a delicious irony, the book industry itself. The reviews by other readers are the most significant factor in my decision to purchase (and sometimes even read!) a book now. Not only that, but Amazon takes the information of its users and by tracking their behavior provides data from them that they are most often not even aware that they are helping to create: of all the customers who looked at a certain book, here is what they actually ended up buying. This feature often leads me to other books I might otherwise not have heard of. Amazon's Kindle, I keep saying, is a hair's breadth away from ROCKING our reading world. Imagine an electronic book that allows you to comment on a sentence, paragraph, or section of the book, and see the comments from other readers… to then actually be in an electronic dialog with those other readers.

(„producer“ and „consumer.“) More and more companies are engaging their customers in the creation of the product they sell them. From avid off-road bikers who created the original mountain bikes that now dominate the market, to substantial companies eliciting R&D work from a broader public. (Or American Idol, which is a fairly brilliant way to create a superstar.) The nature not just of how knowledge is acquired, but how it is produced, is changing.

We are most definitely in a new age, and it matters. (If I'd been born 150 years ago, I might have been taken out into the wilderness and left to die) There is no question that historical eras favor certain personalities and types, and the age of the collaborator is here or coming, depending on where you sit. The era of trusted authority (Time magazine, for instance, when I was young) is giving way to an era of transparent and collaborative scholarship (Wikipedia). The expert is giving way to the collaborator.

Book: How Breakthroughs Happen. In explaining the misconception of the lone inventor, it shows how innovation results from the application of knowledge from one field to another. Now, imagine all of us as creators, bringing our own particular experiences and insight to increasingly diverse and specific areas of knowledge. The combination of 1) an increased ability to work on specialized topics by gathering teams from around the globe, and 2) the diversity of those collaborators, should bring with it an incredible amount of innovation.

Even if that „flat“ world is „spiky“ or „wrinkled,“ it's still getting pretty darn flat. That anyone, anywhere in the world, can study using over the material from over 1800 open courses at MIT is astounding, and it's only the start.

(see www.johnseelybrown.com), but I'll recommend him to you while still mentioning that the distinction between the „lecture“ room and the „hallway“ is diminishing–since it's in the hallway discussions after the lecture where JSB mentions that learning actually takes place. JSB discusses a study that showed that one of the strongest determinants of success in higher education is the ability to form or participate in study groups. He makes the point that study groups using electronic methods have almost the exact same results as physical study groups. The conclusion is somewhat stunning–electronic collaborative study technologies = success? Maybe not that simple, but the real-life conclusions here may dramatically alter how we view the structure of our educational institutions. JSB says that we move from thinking of knowledge as a „substance“ that we transfer from student to teacher, to a social view of learning. Not „I think, therefore I am,“ but „We participate, therefore we are.“ From „access to information“ to „access to people“. From „learning about“ to „learning to be.“ His discussions of the „apprenticeship“ model of learning and how it's naturally being manifested on the front lines of the Internet (Open Source Software) are not to be missed.

It's the model of students as contributors that really grabs me, and leads to the next trend.

When Amazon.com sells more items that aren't carried in retail stores than are, it's pretty apparent that an era of specialized production is made possible by the Internet. Chris Anderson's book should capture the attention of the educational world as the technologies of the Web make „differentiated instruction“ a reality that both parents and students will demand. I can go online and watch heart-surgery take place live. I can find a tutor in almost any subject who can work with me via video-conference and shared desktop. If a student cares about something–if they have a passion for something–they can learn about it and they can actually produce work in the field and become a contributing part of that community.

Web 2.0 was amazing when blogs and wikis led the way to user-created content, but the party really began when sites that combined several Web 2.0 tools together created the phenomenon of „social networking.“ If MySpace were a country, it would be the third most populous in the world. What Ning is doing by allowing users to create their own social networks is amazing. The potential for education is astounding.

The shifts and where we're going in a larger context. The implications for education and learning are paradigm-shattering, as they in fact are all really about education and learning.

* From consuming to producing * From authority to transparency * From the expert to the facilitator * From the lecture to the hallway * From „access to information“ to „access to people“ * From „learning about“ to „learning to be“ * From passive to passionate learning * From presentation to participation * From publication to conversation * From formal schooling to lifelong learning * From supply-push to demand-pull

Some things educators can do if there is truth to the above:

* Learn About Web 2.0. It's not going to go away, and it is pretty amazing. It may seem overwhelming, but it's worth taking the time to jump in somewhere and start the process. Classroom 2.0 (www.Classroom20.com) is not a bad place to start, since it's a social network for educators who are interested in learning about Web 2.0, as it turns out… :) I do like social networking as an easy way to enter the world of Web 2.0, and a good list of educational social networks can be found at http://socialnetworksined.wikispaces.com.

* Lurk. There is nothing wrong with „lurking,“ and a lot to recommend it. If you go to Classroom 2.0 or some other site, that doesn't mean you have to become a contributor right away. If you've spent years evaluating students on their writing, it can be a little scary to put up something you have written for the whole world to see–especially if you don't have hours and hours to refine it. So wait and watch a little.

* Participate. After some purposeful lurking, consider becoming personally engaged. Be brave. Post a comment, or reply to a thought. It can be short! While Web 2.0 may seem short on grammar, spelling, and punctuation, your skills in those areas will help you to communicate well, and you will discover that contributing and creating take on significant meaning when you are participating in a worthwhile discussion.

* Digest This Thought: The Answer to Information Overload Is to Produce More Information.

* Teach Content Production. When you have understood the previous suggestion, you'll realize the importance of starting to teach content production to your students. This is important on many levels, not the least of which is teaching how to make decisions about sharing what you produce (copyright issues, and be sure to learn about Creative Commons licensing)–so that your students can appreciate the importance of respecting the licensing rights of others.

* Make Education a Public Discussion. Maybe the general public hasn't spent much time discussing or debating education and learning lately, but it's about time for that to change.

* Help Build the New Playbook. You may think that you don't have anything to teach the generation of students who seem so tech-savvy, but they really, really need you. For centuries we have had to teach students how to seek out information – now we have to teach them how to sort from an overabundance of information. We've spent the last ten years teaching students how to protect themselves from inappropriate content – now we have to teach them to create appropriate content. They may be „digital natives,“ but their knowledge is surface level, and they desperately need training in real thinking skills. More than any other generation, they live lives that are largely separated from the adults around them, talking and texting on cell phones, and connecting online. We may be afraid to enter that world, but enter it we must, for they often swim in uncharted waters without the benefit of adult guidance. To do so we may need to change our conceptions of teaching, and better now than later.