Can I tempt you with some Web 2.0?

Apr 14th 2009
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Tempting Witch

Recently, my students and I have been using Web 2.0 tools such as Glogster to make online posters, Go!Animate to create cartoon animations and Animoto to make video slide shows. In my last Half Term Review I found myself concluding that my students were, broadly speaking, not as interested in using Web 2.0 tools as perhaps I was. So I found myself asking the question isn’t technology supposed to motivate students?

When I originally announced to my respective classes that we were to embark on a project involving the use of technology over a sequence of lessons, there was excitement and delight, although, looking back, I wonder how much joy was due to the fact that we would not be conducting normal lessons, rather than due to the use of technology. Perhaps I am being overly pessimistic.

Or perhaps not. The next step in the sequence of lessons was to demonstrate to my students how to use the different Web 2.0 tools. I expected jaws to drop and incessant demands of can we do our own now, Sir? All of which, of course, didn’t happen. I realised then that I was more excited about using Web 2.0 tools than they were.

I was convinced that these two contemporary, snazzy looking tools would appeal to my students. I expected my students to be wowed by the wonderfully colourful and interactive posters, the eye-catching and creative animations, and the stunning-looking videos. But it transpired that I was only expecting my students to have the same reaction I had had.

Most of my students come from middle class backgrounds. The majority have either an iPod Touch, an iPhone, a Nintendo Wii, a PlayStation 3 or all of the above. They also often come from more-than-one-computer households. So I found myself considering: why should they get excited by the fact that you can make a cartoon character move clumsily across the screen? And wait, it gets better: if you wait long enough, a speech bubble pops up! Wowee indeed…

Why should they get excited by that when they can control state of the art graphics on their PS3s and make Xmen do elegant somersaults across their TV screens while simultaneously saving the planet from evil forces after finishing their homework?

I found that a minority of students was visibly bored by the process. Quite a few others found that the process of creating an animation or a video was a chore. Instead of can we do our own now, Sir? I was being asked do we really have to do this, Sir? Shock horror!

The lessons had been carefully planned to make Spanish learning more fun and less conventional and to effectively use the available technology to foster learning. On paper, I was doing everything right, so what was I doing wrong?

Then it hit me. I had planned lessons that were exciting to me, not to them. Back to the drawing board then…

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  • Sometimes (rarely) a blogger writes something which kick starts a whole train of responses well worth reading, and this is undoubtedly one of those Jose, so thanks. A teacher and researcher at the IoE I have known for a long time, who has masses of experience using ICT with children, made a very wise comment at a conference I was at there recently. He said, "You know, I just want technology to be in the background."

    At the moment so many schools are still baffled by the often adolescent enthusiasms for technology of grown ups, who really ought to know better. The only question ever worth asking about technology is "Show me what a child has done with it?" Children expect more from their teachers and deserve more, and it sounds as though you are one of the few well on the way there.
  • Nice post, and I have definitely recognised similar attitudes at Primary level.

    I suppose, if one really wants to get all Web2.0 about it, it's not the technology but the people. I've tried giving the children the option to "skin" their own curriculum (and then seed some of the social computing tools into it) and that seemed to get their attention.

    It needs a big rethink from me to get the workload/direction right, but in terms of the "wow" moment, they were all on-board (aged 11) and refreshingly sensible.
  • Moira Hunter
    Thank you for starting this thread with such an interesting post.

    On the one hand, I have often seen educators using technology for the sake of it and have witnessed the rebuffs they have received from parents in the long term, with parents demanding that their children 'learn the language and not the technology'. On the other hand, technology enables language learners to easily be in touch with other language learners (and people) on the other side of the world and these exchanges certainly motivate learners. I agree with comments that a balanced approach blending the 'old' ways with the 'new' ways works.

    However, with my own experience as a mother and an educator, 'learning from scratch' and from peers certainly seems to be the way young learners acquire not only expertise but also confidence to go further. So, in my family life, I am certainly the 'sage on the side' until something dreadful happens and in a classroom environment, I deliberately put myself on the side, and give my electronic equipment to those who may not have it and let them operate it and work it out. When they have problems, I tell them to ask their peers first (using the target language). This works for me and for them and leads to creativity and learner empowerment. Just my thoughts on a very interesting topic.

    Moira
  • Sandy
    I also appreciate your honesty and observations. And I agree with Andy, sometimes you have to follow the path of implementation further down the road until it becomes a conscious tool of choice for the students. By providing them the opportunities to use these tools, you are giving them a "box of tricks" to go for in their other classes. Their resistance is natural in many ways because its easier to regurgitate information then to be creative.

    I look forward to you revisiting this topic.
  • Thanks for your honesty - very refreshing and food for thought. I am also realy enjoying the podcast downloads - it's great to know as a classroom teacher, I am not alone out here in trying to implement web 2.0 into the classroom - stick at it, I am sure your energy an enthusiasm will pay off and invigorate your students as well as your approach to your profession. Also, remember that multiple tests of a new approach may be needed - sometimes the weather, the time of day, the class, the intracontextual dynamic in the room can have a greater effect than all the planning in the world and it can't be avoided - maybe a second exposure to this approach with a different class on a different day would yield very different results? Good luck :)
  • I think the main problem with so-called Web 2.0 applications is that new ones keep appearing, with the result that one spends far too much time learning how to use them and then finding out how useful they really are as teaching and learning tools. Many applications are far too complex and it is debateable just how effective they are in engaging learners and really making a difference to what they learn and retain. Often the simplest applications work best.

    As a NOF trainer, I observed a class (Yr 9, I think) putting together a guide to their town in French - not easy to do as the town happened to be Slough (memories of the John Betjeman poem “Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough…”). The children were all engaged with the task but they were more interested in the DTP package that they were using rather than the content in French. When I looked at examples of the content it was dreadful - full of mistakes which I hope the teacher conducting the class would be able to correct and then give the children some feedback.

    I lost faith in electronic diaries some years ago when I dropped my portable Psion device on the hard floor of Gatwick airport. It was backed up on my home computer, but not in a way that I could use on any other portable devices - Psion had already gone bust at the time. I therefore decided to dig out my old Filofax and I have stuck with it ever since.

    Last year I spent hours creating a room in Lively by Google, which looked promising as a 3D chat application. But Lively was short-lived, shutting down at the end of 2008. All I have left is a few screenshots.

    Finally, electronic portfolios are not all that they are cracked up to be. There was a paper presented at last year’s EUROCALL conference entitled “Use of online European Language Portfolio did not increase student learner autonomy or motivation”. Basically, the students’ interest waned after a few months and they were crying out for feedback from their teachers.

    No, I’m not knocking technology. I use a computer connected to the Internet for at least four hours per day every day, but I am highly selective regarding both the offline and online tools that I use.

    Graham
  • Graham, you bring up a point that is often overlooked in these days of accessible, easy-to-use technology - things do come and go, and it can be frustrating to spend a lot of time figuring out something only to have it go away.

    Not only can time be an issue when educators or students are learning an application, but it can be an issue when districts block student and teacher access to those applications. Undoubtedly there are sites that are inappropriate for students, but the knee-jerk reaction of blocking all sites that might have anything kind of questionable has made it more challenging for classrooms to stay modern. That then puts an additional time constraint on teachers, as we then have to go about convincing administrators about the benefits of a particular application. However, perhaps doing that causes us to critically examine the technology we're using with our students.
  • Guest
    Hello Stephanie,

    Thanks for your comment. I entirely agree with you regarding the knee-jerk blocking of online resources.

    However, as regards websites coming and going, I think that the time spent learning how these tools work is certainly not wasted, as these are transferable skills which our students can build upon.
  • Hello Jose,

    You bring up a good point about the skills students learn while exploring technology tools isn't wasted. In my haste to make sure I'm teaching everything I'm required to teach, it can be easy for me to feel as if I'm "wasting" time. However, students need those technology skills as well. I think the trick for me is to be a bit picky about what my students will spend time with, because even though they will be learning something no matter what, I want to make sure that time is spent learning as much as possible.
  • Graham Davies
    Excellent points, Stephanie!

    I find it so frustrating when I am called in to run a workshop at an educational institution and then find that the local hardware is not up to it or that the sites and online applications that I wish to use have been blocked. My laptop usually comes to the rescue, but I often have a long argument with the local techies in order to persuade them (a) to allow my laptop to access their local network and (b) to unblock firewalls and ports so that I can get into the online sites and applications that I wish to demonstrate. Second Life is a particular problem, but it really is a brilliant facility and a safe area (Teen Second Life), managed by the British Council, is available to schools for use with 13-17 year-olds.

    But, as you say, we should not jump automatically to accept each new application just because we think it will appeal to the younger generation. This issue and also the issue of access came up in the SLanguages 2009 online conference on learning and teaching foreign languages that took place on 8-9 May 2009 - attended by 359 people!

    Read about SLanguages 2009 here in Gavin Dudeney's blog:

    http://slife.dudeney.com/?p=191

    Graham
  • I have the same feeling as you at the moment, I asked my Year 9 pupils to do a diary using toodoo.com or classtool, and most pupils asked what was the point and if they could do it in their ex book instead of spending hours on the PC making this 'book'. I will give them a wider choice next year....but somehow I fear that I will get loads of ex books to mark instead of a homework done using technology.
  • Athole McLauchlan
    A very interesting debate. My own thoughts on it are to query the level and depth of learning that certain web 2.0 applications achieve. I think the last post describes it well when she talks about 'complexity' and the 'patience to learn from scratch.' Animoto, GoAnimate and Glogster are very good introductions to video, animation and photoshop applications but they are limited by virtue of their simplicity. To really extend the possibilities of all these tools the children also need to be able to and spend lots of class time analysing films, animations and visual imagery. None of these applications in themselves teach the children very much about the basic skills of film-making, animation or photography. And then to use movie-editing software etc. that is more open to creativity.
    I have often made the same mistake myself and to jump on the next web 2.0 craze as a means to a speedy and flashy learning end.
    A primary school gives teachers and pupils a lot more time to mess around and play (the key word!) with technology and software. But in the background there should be a solid learning in the basics. When I visited the Pixar exhibition in Edinburgh a couple of years a go it was fascinating to see the all the preparatory 3D models and sketches that went into the development of the films.
    Sometimes the web confuses us into thinking some things are more straightforward than they really are.
  • Guest
    Many thanks for your comment Athole. I agree with the thrust of it, however, I would like to clarify that the main objective using these tools for was for may pupils to practise recently acquired vocabulary and structures in Spanish, not the basics of film-making, animation or photography.
  • I really enjoyed this article. It reminds me of what I always think as a parent. Just because I am excited about the latest thing, doesn't mean my children will be.

    I have had a similar experience in my home. I showed my sons Animoto and GoAnimate. They sit as bookmarks on my computer. But after watching stick figures fight ala martial arts, The Matrix style, both boys and two neighborhood boys are teaching themselves Flash Animation, complete with sound effects, music and more complexity than I care to even think about. Their patience to learn from scratch and by watching is amazing.

    Now, if I can only get them to give that much directed attention to World Cultures.
  • Graham Davies
    See this article by By Jamie McKenzie entitled "Digital Nativism
    Digital Delusions and Digital Deprivation":
    http://www.fno.org/nov07/nativism.html

    It's highly relevant to this discussion - a counter-attack on Prensky.

    But see also these two articles that paint a positive view of Second Life and Social Networking in education:

    http://tinyurl.com/dkgw3d

    http://www.education.com/magazine/article/onlin...

    Graham
  • Graham Davies
    This is a good read too:

    University College London, CIBER Project, School of Library, Archive and Information Studies (SLAIS) (2008) Information behaviour of the researcher of the future, CIBER Briefing Paper: London, University College London. Available at:
    http://www.ucl.ac.uk/infostudies/research/ciber...

    This report dispels a number of myths concerning the "Google Generation", namely young people born or brought up in the Internet age. Research carried out by the CIBER project team claims that young people rely too heavily on search engines, that they view rather than read and do not possess the critical and analytical skills to assess the information that they find on the Web. The Google Generation finds it difficult to assess the relevance of sources and spends little time evaluating information. Regarding the information resources that young people prefer and value in a secondary school setting, it is evident that young people consistently value teachers, relatives and textbooks above the Internet. The impact of social networking is not as great as might be expected, at least when it comes to looking for information. While younger users are keen consumers of user-generated content sites like Wikipedia and YouTube, there is a marked age difference between these younger consumers and the older people who actually create the content. The report also claims that over-65s in the UK (e.g. me) spend around four hours longer online each week than the allegedly always-on 18-24s.

    Graham
  • Guest
    Thanks for your comments and very helpful links Graham. In this last comment you have highlighted our failure to realise that these skills which our youngsters are missing are, in fact, missing because we have not yet taught them to our students.

    I find it completely mind-boggling when teachers talk about their students in terms of "he didn't even know he could upload pictures" or "she looked it up in Google and chose the first link at the top as her source"... well, have we taught them any better?

    This is our failure, not theirs!
  • Graham Davies
    You hit the nail on the head, José. We cannot assume that our sudents know how to use the technology (with which they have grown up) for learning. I grew up with radio and film technology, and TV came into our household in the year of the coronation of Elizabeth II, 1953. I had to learn how to learn using "new" technologies such as TV - and later I had to learn how to teach with the existing technologies.

    Actually, I found radio and TV really useful for learning foreign languages. The BBC began broadcasting radio and TV series for learners of Russian in the early 1960s (maybe earlier, but I first became aware of these series in the 1960s). I learned a lot of Russian from these series - from about the age of 16.

    Graham
  • Graham Davies
    “Web 2.0” and “digital native” are two different concepts - albeit closely related in many respects.

    Web 2.0 derives from Tim O-Reilly, a businessman:
    O'Reilly T. (2005) What is Web 2.0? Design patterns and business models for the next generation of software:
    http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/new...

    Marc Prensky, an educationist who writes a lot about games and learning, is credited with the invention of the term "digital native". See the Wikipedia article:

    ‘Marc Prensky claims to have coined the term digital native, as it pertains to a new breed of student entering educational establishments. The term draws an analogy to a country's natives, for whom the local religion, language, and folkways are natural and indigenous, over against immigrants to a country who often are expected to adapt and assimilate to their newly adopted home. Prensky refers to accents employed by digital immigrants, such as printing documents rather than commenting on screen or printing out emails to save in hard copy form. Digital immigrants are said to have a "thick accent" when operating in the digital world in distinctly pre-digital ways, when, for instance, he might "dial" someone on the telephone to ask if his e-mail was received.’

    Read Prensky's article, "Engage me or enrage me":
    http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0553.pdf
    I don't agree with all that he says, but he makes some good points.

    Analogue literacy did exist, but we didn't find a need for a term to describe it. Teachers were just said to be familiar with educational technology, e.g. tape recorders, film and slide projectors, language labs, radio, TV and hifi. I was a gadget freak from my early teens. I got my first full-time job (in 1968) on the basis of my familiarity with educational technology. I followed a course in educational technology as part of my PGCE course in 1964-65, but I picked up most of the skills on my own. I first got into computers in 1976, and I am completely self-taught in this area of technology.

    The shift from analogue “educational technology” towards computer technology and - more recently - comms technology has been reflected in the constantly changing name of BECTA. BECTA began life as the Council for Educational Technology in the 1960s before computers were in use in schools. Later it became MESU (Microelectronics Education Support Unit), which resulted from the merger of the CET and the MEP (Microelectronics in Education Programme). It then became NCET (National Council for Educational Technology) and finally BECTA (British Educational and Communications Technology Agency.

    Graham
  • Guest
    Thank you all for your comments. Rather than adding a threaded reply to each of the comments, I'll try to deal with some of the points you have raised below:

    <ul>
    <li>The sequences of lessons I discussed above were successful. Most pupils enjoyed them and assessment shows that they learnt more about my subject than they would have done otherwise. Please remember that I am referring to a minority of discontented pupils.</li>
    <li>I never use technology for the sake of technology. I only use it when the end justifies the means and there is a clear advantage to using technology than would otherwise be the case with more traditional methods.
    </li>
    <li>I don't expect my pupils to innately know how to use a new ICT tool or website. I make sure I learn how to use it first and then spend (some would say waste) 20 or 30 minutes in a lesson teaching them how to use the tools, describing the process which needs to be followed and setting a target outcome.</li>
    <li>I set up this blog to share resources but also to reflect about my own practice, so, although I am grateful, I find it surprising to be praised for doing only that. In teaching, as in life, nothing is ever peachy.</li>
    <li>This post simply meant to highlight that, although my experience confirms that the use of technology is a powerful motivator, an equal amount of preparation must go into lessons involving ICT. Technology per se is not a magic bullet.
    </li>
    <li>I certainly am not lamenting the inefficiency or uselessness of technology in the classroom, to the contrary. Rather, I am highlighting the difficulty I have found in planning lessons involving technology which are suitable and engaging for all my pupils.</li>
    </ul>
  • kerryturner
    Hi Jose

    Your post clearly recognises two things;
    1. That the development of senior school students' IT skills is often haphazard. They are not as skilled as we would wish. They come out of Junior school with a wealth of IT 'skills' to be developed and in many instances we then 'drop' any clear programme to continue them, as our main focus becomes the end exam. This is why they develop only the social networking skills they acquire on their own.

    2. A balance - or a blended learning approach, with teachers assessing the true value of the technology, is ideal. You've done this well.

    The crux really is though: on assessment, had the students learnt and achieved more via this way of hands on learning than any other?
  • No one under 20 is impressed by Web 2.0. It's a meaningless term to them. Web 2.0 IS the Web to them - i.e. the so-called "digital natives" (v. Prensky). Remember that the term was coined in 2004 by a bunch of businessmen who were trying to inspire public confidence in the Web again after the dot com crash. Web 2.0 is a more democratic development of the Web as envisaged by its creator Tim Berners-Lee. See what I have written here at the ICT4LT site:

    http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod1-5.htm#WEB2

    Enough said - back to the Bubblegum diso in the 3D world Second Life.

    Graham
  • Guest
    Many thanks for your comment, Graham. I would tend to agree with your age boundary distinction. The term Web 2.0 is a bit like digital natives or digital literacy... Was there ever an analogue native or will there be, assuming there is a breakthrough in science, quantum literacy?

    These words simply reflected the Zeitgeist, and we, as a generation, will be defined by our choice of words. But words are what you make of them, and for those of us past 30, Web 2.0< ./em>, as a term, is still useful in terms of differentiating what web there is now as compared to the static web with which we grew up. That's why the term continues to be used: it serves a purpose.
  • Don't underestimate the power of technology to motivate teachers! We talk about teachers being scared of technology but it can be a great motivator for them too.
    I really love Tom Barrett's classroom utopia! Where the glue and the laptops co-exist and the students choose how they want to do their work.

    As an ICT Teacher almost all my lessons are on computers. Not every lesson is greeted with joy by every student but that's always the case even with the best lesson. If the lesson has value, you meet your aims and most students enjoy it (and of course learn something) then you've done your job. There no magic formula but I feel by using some of these tools I'm increasing a students bank of skills (useful for future life and other subjects) increasing collaboration and assessment in the class, and increasing communication. (they do love chatting online!) Sometimes it's the hard to access tools that have the most value and that's where the skilled teacher showing students how to use them pays off and the hard work reaps rewards.
    My closing line... you can't please all people all of the time - it goes with students too!
  • Do your kids still like using Edmodo?

    -Jeff
  • Guest
    Thanks for your comment Jeff. Yes, students can see the utility and usefulness of Edmodo. To the students trialling Edmodo, it is now as ubiquitous as, say, email or word processing. I referred to the fact that Edmodo remains the most popular tool among my students in my recent Half Term Review. Carry on the great work at Edmodo!
  • Kath Holton
    Hi Jose, I found your comments very interesting - especially after not being able to get into the IT room so much lately so was been blown away by the enthusiasm my pupils have shown in making up conversations with the promise of using my new glove puppets to put on a show; I was amazed at strapping rugby playing boys putting on girly voices with the puppets and all inhibitions with the TL gone. I videoed them with my new Flip vid camera and showed the year 10 vids to my year 11s and asked them to to AfL them - bit risky to do it for the 1st time with the chief inspector in the room, but he said it was a great idea and liked the evidence of pupils being involved more in the learning activities. So I've concluded, a mixture of old fashioned techniques with new technology to make it more interesting/accessible is the way I'm going.
  • Currently getting my Masters of Ed in Educational Technology, one of the topics that comes up often is this idea of using technology when it truly helps a lesson. Using technology for technology sake simply does not make sense for the reasons you've just pointed out. I find it twisted when the administrators at my school ask teachers to try and use technology in the lesson they are coming to observe. what if the lesson they will be observing doesn't truly NEED technology? That's why it is si important to do a lot of leg work EVALUATING technology as a means for improved learning to a lesson or unit.

    One thing I want to point out, or add really, to your comments is the idea of the novelty of it. First, if a classroom teacher uses a lot of technology, then surely they will be less motivated by these lessons as they may not understand the alternative. In other words, how would they know how exciting it is until they try a less exciting means to accomplish the same goals? Only then would the tech use be novel and therefore motivate the students. This I think piggy-backs off the idea that so much of what they already do and have makes these uses less novelty already.

    And, yes, Kudos for the bluntness and honesty on this topic! It's our learning goals first, our means second. If technology happens to enhance the learning of those goals in a better way, only then should we be spending time to utilize it, correct?
  • Sherry Amorocho
    Jose,
    I've had the same experience this year. I made an assumption that my students would
    be able to create projects quickly b/c they were born in the "digital age" and these skills come
    naturally to them... Not really... Many would prefer their digital skills
    to be associated with social networking sites like Facebook with friends or, like you mentioned
    video games. Several prefer paper/pencil activities as homework because they are quicker &
    can be done in the class before Spanish rather than on a computer at home.
    I question the activities that I give them. Can I accomplish the same with
    traditional activities or does the use of technology bring something more to the learning?
    I'm also picking my digital tools carefully, those that are versatile & easy to use win over
    the bells & whistles..
  • Jose,

    Thanks for your honesty with this post. I will endeavor to say that we have all "been there" but it's difficult to admit. Kudos, too, for recognizing this problem. It's very easy to get carried away with the technologies we are excited to explore as teachers without stopping to ask if our students are as excited.

    I'll have to reflect on my own teaching and asking these same questions.

    Chris
  • Jose,

    I know where you are coming from here. I am trying some of our Curriculum for Excellence outcomes up here in Scotland in advance of a planned implementation in August. I thought that the Astronomy topic might be interesting. It says

    "I can use my knowledge of the basic needs of humans, and the bodies of our solar system, to put together a reasoned report on whether we can colonise space."

    Now we've looked at the planets, or at least the pupils have done this, in groups and shared what we have discovered with their classmates. Today, first day back from Easter (perhaps a bad choice of day?) I said we would be looking at the format for the report as a written/typed report would not be allowed.

    We looked at examples of Animoto, GoAnimate, Glogster and listened/watched a selection of audio/video podcasts for inspiration. I felt very deflated when the general consensus of the class was that they didn't want to "make a Bebo page in science".

    Not all of my class have computers at home. I also know that several of them live in areas still waiting for broadband access, so it's not like all of them are online all of the time. Using computers *can* be motivating but I think you are right in saying that they are sometimes more exciting from the teacher's perspective than that of the pupils.
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