How are Web 2.0 tools changing the culture of learning?

Daniel  Light, Deborah  Keisch  Polin, (2010) Integrating Web 2.0 tools into the classroom: Changing the culture of learning, EDC Center for Children and Technology

While this study suggests great potential for Web 2.0 tools, it also demonstrates that careful planning is required to align  instructional activities and the affordances of these tools. Teachers need to design activities in which the communication facilitated by the Web 2.0 tools is meaningful and relates to students’ learning of the content or to their own lives. One of the most salient themes, consistent among more sophisticated users across all of our sites, is that we are perhaps beginning to see a Web  2.0 approach or mentality. It may not be the tool itself that defines Web 2.0, but how it is used to support teaching and learning, both in individual classrooms and as part of a school’s or district’s larger vision. All the tools employed within this approach do not necessarily have to be what immediately comes to mind when one thinks of  “Web 2.0” (e.g., blogs and wikis). However, the philosophy that has developed through the use of these tools embraces a Web 2.0 mentality. The tools are  interactive, they can be used  asynchronously, they are collected together as a suite of resources within a virtual platform, and teachers are integrating them seamlessly into their classrooms to extend and  deepen the educational environment.

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