Social Media and Web 2.0 Tools – Modeling Practices and Online Pedagogy
Abstract: Web 2.0 is becoming increasingly widespread, and enables the shift from the transmission of information to platforms which enable collaborative content creation, participation in social networks, sharing and exchanging. With this change in paradigm, learning and teaching practices need to be accordingly modified. We designed two courses, as part of our teacher training program, to familiarize students with social media and Web 2.0 tools. Students collaborated with the teacher and with one another to become proficient with these tools. Through synchronous sessions, forum discussions, blog posts, polls and collaborative documents students learned to select the most appropriate technological tool to meet their instruction goals. The pedagogies behind this mode of instruction were taught alongside the practical aspects of the course. Students found the courses useful in preparing them for a technology-based school setting, and went on to successfully implement the practices in their own instruction.
Presider: Pasquina Campanella, University of Bari