Task 1b: Professional Communication Technologies
Having worked within
education for over five years I have become accustomed to the ever growing role
of technologies within the working environment. In particular the use of ICT
programs or facilities that continue to evolve. However, Web 2.0 can often be
treated with a great deal of cynicism from certain quarters and widely embraced
within others.
Web 2.0 can be broken down
into two different sections; ‘social
networking’ and ‘collaborative’.
Both of these enable for an interaction between the reader and creator that
allows them to share equal opportunity to control the information or data that
is put up on the web for people to see. I am going to look at what extent
different aspects of Web 2.0 work into my day to day profession.
The ‘Social Networking’ element of Web 2.0 has often been considered a
taboo within education; one of the key issues being web safety from a child
protection point of view, granted we are unable to control to a large extent
how students use the web at
home. However, within school we are filtered by LGFL (London Grid for Learning)
which prohibits the use of social networking websites such as Facebook and
Twitter to aid us in limiting such issues were possible. The other key issue that
arises from social networking sites is the potential to damage the professional
integrity of members of staff by private information being on a public domain
that can be potentially accessed and ‘commented’ on by students. In my case
this is a very tricky situation as I work in the secondary school that I
attended, despite privacy settings not allowing students to find me they may
have an older relative who is a friend of mine that enables them to view photos
of me in my private life. It goes without saying that staff are strictly
prohibited from being connected with students via social networking websites
(being ‘facebook friends’ or ‘following them on twitter). For this reason alone
when I started the Professional Practice course my initial stance was that of;
‘Is social networking really a valuable aspect of Web 2.0 to my current
practice?’
That answer to that question
had mainly been a definite ‘No’ throughout much of the duration of Module 1.
However, through dialogue with colleagues my attention has been drawn to an
innovative approach to the growing use of social networks amongst our students.
The Sixth Form Team have created a Twitter page and a Facebook page as a
strategy to tackle the issue of sixth formers not receiving messages for one
reason or another (not checking notice boards, being absent when notices are
given out in registration). One of the sixth form directors described of the
direct benefits to me in an e-mail conversation:
‘it has shown
that we can use the networking sites for our own advantage as a quick and free
communication tool which the students are already familiar with and use on a
day to day basis. It has been much easier implementing this rather than trying
to use something new and getting them on board with it’
Here is a link
to the twitter ‘widget’ on the school website: http://www.holyfamily.waltham.sch.uk/sixth-form/home/
In addition to this, the
Media department have also set up a YouTube page:
This contains work from the
current A-Level students, allowing them to gain additional feedback from a
wider source of viewers. This mirrors one of Gruber’s components of an online
system as it ‘generates self-service
problem solving discussions on the Internet’ by enabling students to share
their work to be critiqued on a far more open platform than just amongst their
classmates. However restrictions exist within school due to the school system
blocking YouTube for students, how big of an impact do you think this has on
collaboration?
The first course reader
points to three competencies that examine the ever changing roles of users and
creators within Web 2.0:
¨
Architectures Of
Participation
¨
Remixable Data
& Transformations
¨
Harnessing
Collective Intelligence
The latter is in many ways
exemplified by the YouTube channel, as students may use feedback gained through
comments by other YouTube users (when accessible!) to improve or critique their
own work. I do feel that each of the three competencies can be exemplified in
the use of ‘Collaborative’ elements of Web 2.0 in education.
A main example of this is
the TES website (free to sign up for and full of useful resources across all
subjects!) Teachers participate by uploading resources such as lesson plans,
PowerPoint’s amongst other things to share and offer alternative approaches to
teaching a number of topics across each subject. As a result ideas are
‘remixed’ and continually developed- some teachers may not take each lesson
plan as the lesson they wish to follow so may make their own changes and then
once again upload such resources and so on.
The ‘collaborative’ elements
such as TES show that Web 2.0 is not entirely frowned upon within education
sectors, however it did interest me a great deal to read an article by Justin
Reich entitled ‘Reworking the web, reworking the world: how web 2.0 is changing
our society’. When tackling Web 2.0 in education, Reich appears sceptical at
best towards attitudes within teaching regarding Web 2.0. Inferring that
teachers are far more content with the chalk and talk approach to their
subjects and having a reluctance to integrate Web 2.0 into their day to day
teaching. I cannot wholly agree with this notion, as I regularly observe
lessons that try to incorporate a vast amount of digital technologies. That
being said I cannot hand on heart say that the use of Web 2.0 facilities are
exactly prolific in all schools. For example, the London Grid for Learning
website contains a number of interactive resources and games for a range of key
stages such as the following example of an Art and Design programme that
introduces students to contemporary artists:
Whilst such resources are another
shining example of the potential Web 2.0 has to offer education they are not
accessible to all schools. This is largely due to schools having outdated
computer systems or insufficient facilities, for example in my school we have 2
art rooms in which there are no interactive whiteboards thus eliminating
interactive possibilities for those teachers. My question is would Web 2.0 have
a bigger impact on education if funds were implemented to improve ICT
facilities? Would this help education to support 21st Century requirements
that our students will need for the future?
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