Web2 technologies fit seamlessly into this idea of progressive education. This allows for the use of low-cost technologies in the teaching-learning transaction at all levels of the distance education system. From administration to content development and delivery, there are new and interesting platforms for enhancing the classroom operation as well as teaching-learning, assessment, research and administration in distance learning institutions. This paper attempts to highlight some of these low cost and free technologies that can be immediately used by educators and distance education administrators to make more efficient and effective, their day-to-day activities as tutors and administrators.
Web 2.0 educational platforms continue to revolutionize the approach to teaching /learning whether at the primary, secondary or the post secondary sectors of education systems throughout the world. More significantly, is the fact that they are impacting profoundly the way traditional schools, open schools and universities deliver education to students. As the demand for universal primary and secondary education increases including expansion of undergraduate spaces world-wide, in both developed and developing countries; there is need to widen participation and exposure to quality teaching, both face-to-face and distance. Web 2.0 provides a mechanism for 21st century learning/teaching and assessment, including contact with school/university communities, interfacing with industry and in a real sense stimulating greater efficiency and effectiveness to meet the needs of the changing student cohorts-the digital natives and also mature students who need to study while continuing to be employed.
One of the emerging trend of higher education as well as open schools is leading towards the use of web 2.0 technologies. The other uses of technologies include the changing student profile and population, the requirement for improved efficiency and effectiveness in teaching and learning, extending learning beyond the classroom, expanding educational access to individuals in non-classroom environments and the emphasis on sound constructivist and constructionist teaching/learning pedagogies. Distance learning is helping to fulfill this universal demand in education world-wide. As the demand for basic education grows, distance learning continues to expand in both developing and developed countries; and if this trend continues, as it will, distance learning is set to become a major facilitator of learning world-wide with great expectation form all educational stakeholders-students, tutors, course developers, administrators and educational institutions.
Distance Teaching & Learning; its need
The UNESCO millennium goals with respect to education aim to achieve a universal primary education for all by 2015. This goal is unlikely to be achieved without the use of distance learning modalities. Distance learning offers to the learner the flexibility of study out-side of the classroom and the flexibility of learning anywhere, anytime. ICT technology enhances the possibilities of learning by distance beyond the traditional printed mode. Internet access provides a very powerful medium to enhance content delivery using different media like text, video and graphics. However there continues to be the issue of equal access to all and the cost of internet connectivity in many developing countries. In spite of these challenges however, the massive impact of distance education world-wide and the opportunities offered to millions of individuals including the marginalized, the rural poor and women in particular have underscored its value as a means to education, especially in developing nations. Distance learning using Web 2.0, used effectively and efficiently significantly enhances the quality of teaching-learning process and expands the traditional classroom environment to an on-line communication, collaborative and sharing space with student and tutor support, it emphasizing the social nature of education.
Blended Learning
Blended Learning provides the context and the best mechanism for the adoptation of web 2.0 technologies, including other low-cost technologies in distance education. More significantly, the cohort of mature working, part-time students who generally access the evening programmes at secondary and higher learning institutions are hampered by the limited contact time with the lecturer (generally 3 hours per week). There is a need for such students to communicate with their lecturers beyond the class room session, whether in groups or individually; to be exposed to extra sources of content, both print and on-line platforms for communication, collaboration and sharing of ideas. Blended learning provides these advantages. Social low-cost technologies are available for use in the classroom transaction and beyond in a blended learning context where the course delivery is targeted towards the different learning styles of students. There exist therefore a symbiotic relationship between the distance learning methodology and web 2.0 technologies, which needs to be exploited to enhance the distance learning modalities of teaching/learning if only to expand the reach of higher learning institutions to their communities of learners.
Web2.0 in Distance Learning
Distance education in 21st teaching-learning environment allows teacher’s to maximize their efforts in providing collaborative, engaging, dynamic learning spaces which offer mechanisms for learning and discovery “24/7/365”. It must also use a range of methods and media, including on-line and/ or real-time events to allow students to engage in learning projects.
Therefore, distance learning in the 21st century progresses beyond the traditional text-based materials which were posted to students. Such content was generally studied by the student (alone) with very little interaction with other students, assignments and/or tests completed and returned to tutors. This was a tried and tested method which allowed many students to access education up to post graduate level. The emergence of technology, particularly internet and other communication technology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries have radically transformed distance learning to a more multi-media, dynamic, social learning environment with real-time or asynchronous teaching and learning with the ability to find electronic resources to augment course materials and to allow for more social engagement by students and tutors. Distance learning is now undertaken by universities and distance learning institutions using a range of delivery methods including radio, television, video, CD/DVD, audio cassette tape, ipod and video-podcasting, cell phone, e-learning platforms, Virtual learning environments and learning management systems, most of these underpinned by use of the internet.
Web 2.0 provides the most dynamic, creative, social responsive learning platform which improves learning; including distance learning by exposing the social contexts in which teaching/learning takes place. It invigorates both the teacher and learner to use different learning channels for knowledge acquisition and research, allows for real-time collaboration, discourse, editing, formatting, publishing and archiving of content. It also allows for real-time, on-line testing and assessments with immediate results. It therefore provides for matching learning styles of individual students with varying delivery modes while encompassing the traditional lecture augmented by the range of technology- derived delivery methods. Web 2.0 focuses on the process of learning rather than the content for learning and has therefore transformed distance learning from a peripheral educational concept attracting only a minority of students to a main stream education option for thousands of individuals world-wide, who wish to pursue education but whom, for a number of reasons, are unable to return to the classroom.
Web 2.0 tools for Distance Education/Learning
The range of web 2.0 facilitations for distance education provides endless possibilities for dynamic engagement between student and student, student and tutors, student, tutor and experts in an all-embracing, borderless teaching/learning environment. These technologies do not replace face-to-face teaching nor are they intended to supersede the impact of the tutor/lecturer in teaching. The focus of this Section is on free web 2.0 popular platforms used in higher education and by institutions offering distance education.
I) The first category is social software use principally for group discussions:
a) Blogs
Blogs are free systems for publishing thoughts or ideas around a theme or topic initiated by the tutor, the student or expert in a subject area. These are publicly displayed as time-ordered articles (called posts). Blogs allow for individual or group posting and can be integrated into discussions on an LMS (e.g. Moodle). This feature can be used to develop a reservoir of knowledge using the post and comment mechanism. Here bloggers pool their collective ideas together as they post and receive comment and make refinement of ideas on posts. Blogs can also be used to make course announcements and provide feedback to students.
b) Wikis
A wiki is a collaborative website which entertains the easy creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages by anyone with access to it via a web browser using a simplified language or a WYSIWYG(what you see is what you get) text editor. Wikis have a range of usage in a distance education context. They may be used for scaffolding in any subject area- from subject themes to page structure and content and to provide feedback. They are most desirable for collaborative class projects involving groups of students for incrementally adding content, documenting tasks editing material and can also be used for the development of student portfolios. Wikis also allow for the sharing of on-line resources.
C) LiveJournal
LiveJournal is a virtual community where Internet users can keep a blog, journal or diary. LiveJournal is also the name of the free and open source server software that was designed to run the LiveJournal virtual community. Live Journal’s features include those found in similar blogging sites (multiple authors, commenting, calendars, and polls). However, LiveJournal differentiates itself from other blogging sites by its WELL-like features of a self-contained community and some social networking features similar to other social networking sites.
D) Web Group (Yahoo Groups)
Yahoogroups is a service from yahoo that provides electronic mailing lists and also operates as internet forums. Group messages can be posted and read by e-mail or on the group homepage, like a web forum. The Yahoogroups service provides additional functions on the website, such as shared message archives and calendar systems, Photos sharing, power point presentations view, member poll, shared links, file uploading, databases, online questions and answers, etc. These facilitations in Yahoogroups make it more useful in distance learning and students engagement for discussion.
II) The second category is used for storing and sharing of educational content in different media formats:
Media-sharing services
A critical area of distance education is the finding and sharing of resources for teaching and learning. Media-sharing services allow for the pooling of such resources in different media-text, audio, still-picture and video; creating valuable teaching/learning resources limited only by individual and group creativity and innovation. Among the more popular free Media-sharing services available for use in distance education are:
a) Slideshare for uploading/downing presentations;
b) Scribd for uploading/downloading documents;
c) Deviant ART for uploading/downloading art work;
e) teacherTube for uploading/downloading an extensive range of short movies in almost any educational subject;
f) Storybird used for for creating collaborating online digital stories and document.
g) iTunes for uploading/downloading of podcasts and vidcasts;
h) Frickr/picasa/photobucket for the uploading/downloading and sharing of photos and more importantly, for finding Creative Commons licensed images which can be used as educational resources. Frickr also provide for annotations to be linked with distinctive sections of an image and for comments to be placed on the image as a whole. It therefore facilitates teacher/student explanations, class discussion, and collaborative comments in teaching/learning in distance education.
i) Podcasting used together with MP3/4s and other mobile devices (e.g. cell phone) allows the user to listen to audio content. Such content can be easily updated and placed on computers/servers for student access anytime, anywhere.
j) Vodcasting is podcasts with video and are also linked with RSS (Really Simple Syndication) streams which provide up-to-date information on a range of subjects. Here the user is able to playback/download new content to mobile devices-audio/video player, cellphone, computer etc.
The implications for distance education using these web 2.0 assets are significant and far-reaching. These are essentially free platforms with very little technology requirement other than the use of a computing device and internet connection. For example, podcasts can be used to record lectures, demonstrations etc. for distant learners to download and utilized. Such content can be used for reinforcement of concepts or for access by students who missed sessions or can be used to meet the individual student’s learning requirements.
Lectures can be video-taped and placed on a video sharing system (e.g. Google Video) for accessing by students. Thus instructional videos and lectures/seminars can be hosted on free open spaces like Google docs, TeacherTube for access by students. Google Video provides for longer, better quality videos than YouTube and also stores a range of educational videos. Students can also harvest free and open video/audio resources to create a pool of shared resources in any subject area as part of a learning community. Where there is unreliable internet connectivity for real-time activity, resources can be downloaded onto storage media- pendrives, CD, DVD and packaged for students.
III) The third category involves searching and locating on-line resources:
Social bookmarking
As part of the research efforts required in distance education teaching and learning, social bookmarking services allow users the facility to record (bookmark) webpages and tag such records with relevant descriptions that explain the page being recorded. Two major examples of this are buzka and delicious. Users can create a reservoir of records with common tags; such tags can be used by anyone to search for bookmarked objects by possible tags. Items classified with many tags may be considered as important and thus socialbooking services can in some instances be more effective in finding internet resources. They also aid in the development of communities of users who are interested in the same topic or subject. Teachers and learners can over time construct collections of relevant resources in any subject area and may also use such system to bookmark resources that are not on the web.
IV) The fourth category represent teaching web 2.0 tools:
Web 2.0 Teaching Tools
Classtools.net – This site allows flash templates to be embedded into blogs, wikis and websites
Exam Builder – This tool enables one to create online test in a Web browser for publication. Tests can be customized for online registration and student resits. It shows students scores analysis.
gliffy – it provides facility to create various graphics organizer collaboratively. It helps to create mind/concept mapping.
Yugma - Yugma is a free web conferencing service that enables distance learners to instantly connect over the internet and to collaborate using any application or software.
Moodle - Moodle is a course management system (CMS) - a free, Open Source software package designed using sound pedagogical principles, to help educators create effective online learning communities.
Chalksite - This site is one of the quickest, simplest routes to expanding your classroom onto the Internet. Teachers, students and parents have a central point to access grading, assignments, discussions and messaging.
Engrade - Engrade is a free online grade book that allows teachers to manage their classes online as well as post grades, assignments, attendance, and upcoming homework online for students and parents to see.
Web Poster Wizard - This free tool allows educators to create a lesson, worksheet, or class page and immediately publish it online.
Schoopy - You can post homework in more than one location on SCHOOPY. The first place you should consider is the calendar, where you can post important dates and notices. However, you may choose to use the Assignments/Quizzes/Files tool depending on how you would like to contact students.
Survey Builder - This allows you to easily create and manage online surveys suitable for Internet-based oral history projects, course evaluations, and other endeavors that involve collecting feedback. You do not need to know how to build a Web page that has forms, set up a database to store entries, or do any of the other technical tasks that are normally required to produce interactivity on the Internet.
SchoolNotes - Create Notes for homework and class information and post them on the web in seconds using this free community service. Parents and Students can view notes from teachers through school zip code.
Classroom 2.0 – It is a social network for those interested in Web 2.0 and Social Media in education, Which encourage sign up to participate in the great discussions here, to receive event notifications over elluminate web conference, and to find and connect with colleagues.
ClassCentral - It provides the necessary tools for class and individual communications, grading and grade reporting, coursework and assignment publishing, content building, document sharing, and more. And, it's all free.
eStudy - It is an open source e-learning and collaboration platform for colleges and universities. In addition to usual course management facilities, eStudy provides special support for role-play simulations in computer science.
Merlot – It is a free and open resource designed primarily for faculty and students of higher education. Links to online learning materials are collected here along with the ability to connect with peers.
Conclusion
Web 2.0 technologies therefore allow for a re-engineering, re-focusing and re-organization for the teaching/learning transaction for distance learning. They expand the original linear, one way interface between teacher and learner to a multi-dimensional teacher/learner engagement which includes the use of text, audio, video and graphics, separately or collectively, on platforms that enable synchronous or asynchronous communication, collaboration and sharing of ideas and /or content. Web 2.0 enhances student participation and engagement in distant learning via teacher-student, student-teacher, student-student and student-expert communication, collaboration and sharing; extends assessment beyond the traditional summative mid-term or end-of-term examination that is the focus in tradition face-to-face teacher centric classroom instruction to include a range of formative assessments which can be on-line or off-line; helping to chart students’ progress throughout a course. Web 2.0 socializes education enabling students to take responsibly for their learning and allowing them to contribute individually or collectively to the knowledge-base of any subject area. It enhances the distance educational experience for students making learning interactive and engaging rather than passive and lonely and personal.
Reference Links:
http://wikieducator.org/social networking/
http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/Main_Page