Web2.0

PERCEPTIONS AND COMPETENCE OF PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS

S U R A B H I B H A R G A V A

ROLE OF WEB 2.0 IN SCIENCE EDUCATION

Web 2.0

Web 2.0: "A perceived second-generation of Web-based

services such as social networking sites, wikis, communication tools, and folksonomies that emphasize online collaboration and sharing among users"

Web 2.0 concentrates on the common applications/services such as blogs, video sharing, social networking and podcasting—a more socially connected Web in which people can contribute as much as they can consume.

Key Web 2.0 services/applications

Blogs: The term web-log, or blog, was coined by JornBarger in 1997 and refers to a simple webpage consisting of brief paragraphs of opinion, information, personal diary entries, or links, called posts, arranged chronologically with the most recent first, in the style of an online journal (Doctorow et al., 2002). Most blogs also allow visitors to add a comment below a blog entry.

Well-known or education-based blogs: http://radar.oreilly.com/ http://www.techcrunch.com/ http://www.instapundit.com/ http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/ *

Wikis

A wiki is a webpage or set of webpages that can be

easily edited by anyone who is allowed access

(Ebersbach et al., 2006).

Wikis generally have a history function, which allows previous versions to be examined, and a rollback function, which restores previous versions.

Examples of wikis:

http://wiki.oss-watch.ac.uk/ *

http://wiki.cetis.ac.uk/CETIS_Wiki *

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page *

http://www.wikihow.com

Tagging and social bookmarking

A tag is a keyword that is added to a digital object (e.g. a website, picture or video clip) to describe it.

Social bookmarking systems allow users to createlists of ‘bookmarks’ or ‘favourites’, to store these centrally on a remote service (rather than within the client browser) and to share them with other users of the system (the ‘social’ aspect).

These bookmarks can also be tagged with keywords. services like Flickr, (photos), YouTube (video) and Odeo

(podcasts) allow a variety of digital artefacts to be socially tagged.

Examples of tagging services: http://www.connotea.org/ http://www.librarything.com/ http://del.icio.us/

Folksonomy versus collabulary

One outcome from the practice of tagging has been the rise of the ‘folksonomy’. Unfortunately, the

term has not been used consistently and there is confusion about its application. There is a distinction

between a folksonomy (a collection of tags created by an individual for their own personal use) and a

collabulary (a collective vocabulary).

Audio blogging and podcasting

Podcasts are audio recordings, usually in MP3 format, of talks, interviews and lectures, which can be played either on a desktop computer or on a wide range of handheld MP3 devices.

A podcast is made by creating an MP3 format audio file (using a voice recorder or similar device),

uploading the file to a host server, and then making the world aware of its existence through the use of

RSS.

RSS and syndication

RSS is a family of formats which allow users to find out about updates to the content of RSS-enabled

websites, blogs or podcasts without actually having to go and visit the site. Instead, information from

the website is collected within a feed (which uses the RSS format) and ‘piped’ to the user in a process known as syndication.

CURRENT STUDY(2011)

This study was conducted with the Pre-Service science teachers of the Teacher Training institutions of the University of Delhi.

Since the main purpose of this research was to understand pre-service teachers’ technology adoption, descriptive statistics such as frequency, percentages were calculated to summarize the data. Open-ended items were coded to identify key patterns and themes emerged from the responses.

17%

83%

yes no

FORMAL TRAINING ABOUT TECHNOLOGY

yes no

Access41%

Ambiguous information

16%

Personal Constraint

35%

No answer8%

BARRIERS TOWARDS INTEGRATION

Interest & Fun14%

New ideas, innovation

47%Easiness &

Convenience10%

Discussion & Collaboration with

specialists21%

No answer8%

ROLE OF WEB2.0 IN SCIENCE EDUCATION

5

4

2

15

6

Strongly disagree Disagree Can't say Agree Strongly agree

NEED TRAINING

Strongly disagree Disagree Can't say Agree Strongly agree

2

5

4

11

7

2

Strongly disagree Disagree Can't say Agree Strongly agree No answer

PREPAREDNESS TO REGULARLY USE TECHNOLOGY

Strongly disagree Disagree Can't say Agree Strongly agree No answer

4

2

10

14

1

2

Strongly disagree Disagree Can't say Agree Strongly agree No answer

PREPAREDNESS TO CONSIDER ETHICAL, SOCIAL & LEGAL IMPLICATIONS

Strongly disagree Disagree Can't say Agree Strongly agree No answer

1

12

11

9

2

1

Strongly disagree Disagree Can't say Agree Strongly agree No answer

ABILITY TO USE WEB 2.0 TO DEVELOP STUDENT'S THINKING

Strongly disagree Disagree Can't say Agree Strongly agree No answer

Low45%

Medium36%

High11%

No answer8%

WEB LOGS OR BLOGS

Low22%

Medium28%

High44%

No answer6%

SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES

Low33%

Medium17%

High39%

No answer11%

COLLABORATIVE SERVICES (Wikis etc.)

Low36%

Medium31%

High25%

No answer8%

MULTIMEDIA SHARING

Low67%

Medium14%

High5%

No answer14%

AUDIO BLOGGING OR PODCAST

Low62%

Medium20%

High9%

No answer9%

TAGGING OR SOCIAL BOOKMARKING

Conclusions

Majority of the participants indicated that they need more training to learn how to implement computer technologies especially Web 2.0 services in order to enhance their students' learning.

It is reasonable to assume that pre-service teachers may have come to teacher education programs with adequate expertise in such skills.

They were less knowledgeable about more advanced and emerging web-based services such as web-logs, social networking sites, collaborative services like wikis, multimedia sharing services like flickr, youtube etc., audio blogging and podcasts and tagging and social bookmarking

Limitations

Small size of the sample.

Limited locale of the sample.

Similar future studies especially more detailed case studies can be replicated using a larger number of participants.

Suggestions

Web 2.0 applications along with wide variety of activities should be emphasized in the content of additional training programs or educational technology courses.

Pre-service teachers should be taught about the nature of technology and its alternative roles in educational contexts other than searching and presenting information and time saving applications.

More emphasis should be put on the potential cognitive contributions of technology on teaching and learning. In this way, pre-service teachers could understand the pedagogical rationale underlying technology integration and develop more fruitful and high level technology-supported instructions.

Teacher educators should model effective use of technology by incorporating it throughout the entire curriculum rather than exclusively offering stand-alone technology courses.

Teacher education programs should provide pre-service teachers with learner-centered, collaborative, authentic and inquiry-based learning environments in order to help them understand how to use technologies as tools to enhance their teaching and students’ learning.

Even these trainings can be web-based and accessible at distance so that pre-service teachers can make use of these based on their own interests, pace, and time.