Digital Pedagogy: Web 2.0 and classrooms

Communication is at the heart of Web 2.0 tools (Peace, 2015).

When I read the chapter by Peace, and when I read anything in this subject, I am reading with three heads! This means, I am reading as a learner of technology and design, as a teacher, and as a student. I take on the student’s perspective to aid my learning and become an empathetic teacher. If more teachers reflected on how students positioned what happened in a classroom, I can imagine that there would be many changes.In so far as digital pedagogy goes, Peace describes all Web 2.0 tools as having communication at the heart of it; using technology in a human way. This is wonderful, because the same should be said of classrooms. All classrooms should be using technology to aid collaboration, discussion, sharing perspectives (locally, nationally and internationally). Everything I read has the same content…that technology engages and motivates children. I think we have reached appoint where technology has become akin to cultural assimilation. As I write this, my 9 year old daughter is on the iPad next to me, immersed in it. I have four children and I know that these statements are true.

I like Peace’s 3 E’s of Web 2.0:

Enjoyable/exciting

Energises learning

Emancipatory

I found the third one very in depth, and relevant to pre-service teachers. It discusses how we have a responsibility to use technology for the betterment of our learners, but to also create a new attitude about technology when we do so. In this way, we emancipate ourselves as teachers.The chapter touches on technology making a link between home/school in that students can be engaged in spontaneous learning with technology; in the same way they would, at home. But I see another way too; students completing research, homework and practise of work through online game play (study ladder, reading eggs etc) all monitored by the teacher, in a different location. On previous prac experiences, I have known all students to have their own learning tablets, televisions, and more. I have also experienced schools in remote and poverty stricken communities where a household may have one computer shared between many families. In these situations, school was the only time the children were explicitly exposed to learning through technology. With that in mind, our responsibilities are even more pronounced.

I have found so many ways to use Web 2.0 tools in my future classroom.

·         Class blog
·         Group wiki’s for assessment
·         Padlet for use in whole class discussions
·         HICTU for all students to formatively report on their learning and progress (video, audio and microblogging with text)

I am considering how I would use HICTU on prac, to record learner feedback, rather than sheets per student.