Teaching with web 2.0 technologies: Twitter; wikis & blogs - Case study Video Lecture | Teach Online: A Comprehensive Approach for Teaching Online - Professional Skills

web 2.0 is a term that encompasses the
way that online social media tools are
enabling users to communicate
collaborate and generate dynamic content
in social networks
lugnut alarm from the University of
Canberra describes how she uses web 2
tools such as blogs wiki's and Twitter
to improve student engagement in a
face-to-face class Luna describes the
pedagogy behind this process and
outlines the benefits that web 2
technologies can bring to student
learning the class that I'm teaching is
called social informatics social
informatics is about technology impact
so how does technology impact that
society level we have both a
face-to-face component and we also have
the online web 2.0 tools integrated
within the unit web 2.0 is is a set of
tools emerging tools that people are
using to interact with each other we
basically use three different tools in
our class we use blog and we use a wiki
site and we use also Twitter
I was using these tools in the unit as a
way of actually looking at how they can
question the value of these tools by
actually using these tools themselves
this is the subject Moodle site for the
social informatics I have integrated the
external social media into the Moodle
site this way when you come into the
Moodle site you can see the latest blog
posts you can see the latest tweets and
they come as feet
so this is the unit blog site it uploads
all the tutorials for each week we used
a blog to look at tutorial exercises and
comment on each other's work sometimes
also we're asked to blog about different
topics related to subject matter
raised in the lecture all these units
students are here so if you click on one
of them it will take you to their own
blogs and you can see the blog's he has
made and some of the comments he has
received the other way we have used the
block site is to archive all the tweets
because tweets are transient so we use
the block press archive to do this
because the subject and domain is
interested into web 2.0 tools and
government 2.0 tools we follow other
people's blogs as well and that feed
also comes in
a wiki is a collaborative tool that lets
you contribute to a content the way we
have used this in this unit is two ways
first they could use it for lectures in
the lecture section we are also
encouraged to provide extra information
or extra resources that are also helpful
so students can click on the page
operations and then edit and it takes
them to the edit mode and they
contribute to the you know relevant
sections whenever they see this please
contribute or add comments they can add
it and then just click the Save button
secondly we have used it in tutorial as
well they could use it to summarize
something they have read and they shared
the relevant concepts from there for the
unit I've used a carrot and I say that
you could take the wiki to the exam and
this has given the students some if you
like interest to populate the wiki with
the relevant content and contribute so
that they can actually use this in the
exam situation
twitter is a 140 character microblogging
you know tool I think the reason it
works because it's just it is just like
an SMS style communication we abused a
hashtag the hashtag lets you follow a
certain topic and if you search by the
hashtag you get to see all the twits for
the subject twits have been used in I
think three different ways one way is to
share information so something they have
read they want to share it with the
others they have used it to bring in
links to other sources and then they
have also used to talk to me so students
have actually used the at lumen alum to
get my attention what we do is basically
we tweet about the lecture contents and
if we have any you know comments on
someone's tweet we can just comment back
I use my smartphone which I have the
application on it or you can find other
students we can use their laptops and
tweet about the lecture contents I use
the tweet chat to watch a hashtag in
real time and this has helped a lot with
face to face debates that we run in the
tutorial sessions it is just an open
discussion and everybody has a right to
express their own thoughts and it is on
us what we take from the discussion that
whether our point was valid or did we
learn more was everybody agreeing to the
point so at the at the end of the day it
is nobody losing it is all of us winning
in some way or the other
I think the biggest benefit of using
these tools is the ability for scenes to
collaborate and communicate with each
other especially also sharing
information sharing the experience I've
seen students more engaged using these
tools because they knew each other
better they could interact outside the
hours of the class time behave you can
tweet any questions or anything any
queries to your lecturer anytime they
could share the references they could
share their views on the issues and then
they could have the students helping
each other there as well
they've given every student or every
person a lot more space to express their
own opinions the major outcome it's peer
learning it's just learning from each
other and sharing this information
when you're using web 2.0 tools there is
a set of pedagogy 2.0 principles that
are available so you really need to
think of your strategies that how you
will integrate these tools for learning
and then of course if you're using it in
assessment how we really integrate this
into assessment as well you have to
understand the limitations so that when
you're using them into the unit you know
when things could go wrong when you need
to really tell the students how these
tools work and how they can actually use
it to get the value out of them the best
way to you know learn about these tools
is just to use them and use them
professionally so that you get value out
of them because then only you can start
to see how they can be valuable to your
students
I think as a teacher if you are using
web 2.0 tools there is an expectation
that you will be available 24 hours
seven days a week so on the onset in the
very first lecture you have to set some
ground rules there cannot be an
expectations of immediate feedback
having said that because I'm a user of
these tools myself I do check it
regularly some of the students will pick
up these tools and they will just start
you know start to use this as if they
have been using it for a while but for
other students you will have to help
them out at the beginning like for the
first three weeks I had this problem
managing all these tools and remembering
the passwords remain user names and you
know contributing to each one of them
they found it difficult to understand
some of the benefits of these tools for
example Twitter is not quite intuitive
you know as like Facebook so they found
difficult how do you follow a hashtag
why would you follow a hashtag how do
you talk to each other using a hashtag
so what does the ad look nyalam actually
means how does a reply work the students
were quite overwhelmed if you like with
this new ways of communicating so having
a set of training material having
information sessions help sessions and
the constant if you like assistance is
required to get them used to these tools
to me web 2.0 tools are about people
it's about communication it's about
sharing today's students are tomorrow's
citizen 2.0 so they need to be able to
use these digital tools to participate
if you like in democratic activities and
become participating citizens
you