Éducation 2.0

Un très intéressant rapport sur l’intégration du Web 2.0 dans l’éducation post-secondaire dans 5 pays, à savoir l’Australie, Les Pays-Bas, l’Afrique du sud, le Royaume-Unis et les États-Unis.

A review of current and developing international practice in the use of social networking (Web 2.0) in higher education

This report was commissioned by the Committee of Inquiry into the Changing Learner Experience to review the current and developing use of Web 2.0 technologies in higher education from an international perspective. It looks at how Web 2.0 is being used in both learning and teaching and learner support in five countries (Australia, The Netherlands, South Africa, United Kingdom and United States of America) as well as the drivers and inhibitors to use and looks at some of the ways in which we expect higher education practice to develop as a result.

Extrait

Voici d’ailleurs une liste (traduction personnelle) des avantages d’utiliser le Web 2.0 dans les universités :

• Augmenter la motivation des étudiants
• Améliorer l’apprentissage des étudiants
• Atteindre les objectifs pédagogiques actuels
• Élargir les frontières de l’apprentissage
• Offrir de nouvelles fonctionnalités d’accompagnement des élèves
• Appropriation plus rapide des nouvelles technologies
• Offrir des environnements d’apprentissage en classe et à distance plus flexibles
• Permettre à l’institution d’être populaire (dans la vague)
• Motiver les employés
• Élargir les pratiques d’apprentissage et la formation
• Protéger l’environnement

Voici l’extrait du texte original :

Benefits of using Web 2.0 in higher education

Provides an opportunity to tap into student motivations

• Students enjoy using Web 2.0 media and find it fun. (”It excites and interests the students - they are engaged in doing real research and the classes are made relevant to their own personal interests and questions.”)
• Better student engagement and performance. (”Better learning - more creative options - more excitement from the students”) Young people are used to using these environments and adapt quickly to their use.

Improves student learning

• Transferable skills development for students. (”2- increasingly the skills you need to use in Web 2.0 technologies are needed in the work place”. “Introduces students to new applications”.)
• Sharing their work and thinking in a communal space has given students examples of other’s learning and so helped them improve their own learning. (”Blogging has encouraged reflection.” “2 creates more insights from students”.)
• Creates more active learners

Meets current pedagogic goals

• Creates opportunity for collaborative work, and sharing knowledge with each other and developing new knowledge. Offers opportunities beyond text and linear based learning. (”Basically, things you couldn’t do in other ways, or being able to blend face to face and online interaction in a way that deepens learning. It can be more fun to teach too.”)
• Enables academics to support enquiry led approaches to learning. (”changes our focus, moving from teaching to learning”).
• Provides the ability to monitor, track learning and see processes during the course.
• Creates opportunities for ‘authentic’ engagement of wider communities of learning, especially for professional training courses, drawing external professionals into the learning space.

Changes the nature of learning boundaries

• Much informal learning that has always taken place now becomes much more visible, but also creates many more spaces for this to occur and begins to blur the boundaries between students and others in informal learning. (”2.breaking down the barrier between informal and formal learning - students can draw on other interests and link different areas of their lives.”)
• Creates a shared learning community between students (”Wikis - students collaborate on a document. I didn’t use this to its full advantage, but when I do in the near future, I expect students to form more of a community than currently possible.”)
• The monolithic VLE tools provide little scope for the wider ranging ambitions of innovators and those who want their students to work with enquiry led approaches. Web 2.0 tools offer much more potential for innovation in learning, teaching and assessment. (”With these we can develop evidence based research, creating communities that grow beyond instructor/course involvement, creating community, establishing student control and presence”.)

Provides new functionality for supporting students

• Work can be viewed and assessed on-line. (”Handy storage space on line for students to park their work and reflections, which saves on the paperwork - I just go in and view what they choose to publish.”)
• Support services such as the Library can be offered more flexibly. (”Web 2.0 allows us to offer alternative means by which students obtain information to support their course work. They may not be able to attend, or have forgotten what they learnt in library information skills workshops, but they can view vidcast demonstrations and podcasts to reinforce learning.”)
• Improved communication environment and easy communications tools enhance many aspects of supporting students. (”Our student body includes a lot of part-time students and students who take breaks in study. Web 2.0 technologies can be of tremendous value here allowing constant communication all months of the year and sustained contact.”).
• In some countries social networking sites are used widely for pre-entry support of new incoming students and increasingly for campus communities.

Ease of use providing ready access

• Many tools are seen as easy to use by staff and students. (”Rapid development of new online learning services which are highly flexible and adaptable to meet user needs - staff and students We find we do not need promote web 2 tools in the way we had to market our previous more static tools - the communities which develop through the tools themselves are an engine for growth and innovation.”)

• Students can readily access what they need and communicate with others through use of these tools. (”Provides full use for everyone. Easy to navigate.” “No development time and very little support required. Technologies are understood by students - so don’t need to explain what they are.” “Disperse (preserve and organize) information to many without having to constantly email faculty/grad students notifications about “New” info available to them.”)

Provides new flexible virtual spaces without walls or time constraints

• Students and staff can work on and off campus. (”Opportunity for remote access to a private page (wiki) so committee faculty can jot down their ideas whenever they occur for later sharing.” “Flexibility, supports process based and reflective teaching methodologies, lets my work and the students work be porous to each other and the world.”
• Extends the learning community beyond the boundaries of the university. (”Gives transcendence of institutional boundaries providing engagement with a wider community”.)
• Cuts across fixed time constraints. (”I have extended the classroom beyond the physical walls and time.” “Ability to make work, particularly long-term research work, easier.”)

Being at the front of the game

• Advantage is thought to accrue from operating in the virtual world that young students are familiar with and increasingly have as expectations of their HEIs. (”It is no good just doing it to be “cool” though - it does have to have an obvious relationship with what is being learned, or students feel you are wasting their time.”)
• For some HEIs the use of Web 2.0 tools forms part of their image. (”It’s brand and image, flexibility, ‘walking the talk’.”)
• It’s also seen as fashionable. (”it’s seen as trendy - so it’s easier to get teaching and learning funding.”)

Motivates staff

• Provides a space academics can control (not hosted within fixed institutional Virtual Learning Environments) for their own innovative teaching practices
• Gives opportunity for academics to innovate around their preferred pedagogies
• Is seen by some as time saving. (”It saves me time and also encourages me to generate content for students and other colleagues.”)
• Spread good practice amongst staff. (”using it personally I get a huge amount of awareness of what other librarians are doing in their practices.”)

Supports wider HEI practices

• Student experience is affected by the use of Web 2.0 tools in other parts of their HEIs. (”The network of former students provides better contacts as students move through successive apartments, grad student housing etc.” “Students that I personally introduce to bookmarking tools, open source picture editors, and things like Google Docs are excited and go away with a positive image of the library.”)

Environmental benefits from using Web 2.0 technologies

• The benefit of freely available externally hosted sites for use with students is considered beneficial by some, since their institutions are not likely to be able to afford to host or develop the tools themselves.
• More environmentally friendly. (”Staff and students use much less paper.”)