Week 2 - Blog Posting #3.2 - Media Literacy - Do the students really want us to integrate Web 2.0?

Found an interesting paper while looking for information about Web 2.0 applications to the classroom. Neil Selwyn from the Institute of Education, University of London did a literature review to question the educational potential of Web 2.0. While he noted that there were a variety of studies, with a variety of conclusions, he seemed to feel that Web 2.0 applications have more potential in informal education scenarios and that ultimately there were some important questions that needed to be researched:

• To what extent do learners expect/desire to use ‘informal’ forms of ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) in the formal educational settings such as the school?
• Which ICTs do learners see as being most motivating, engaging and personalisable?
• Conversely, which ICTs do learners see as unsuitable for the classroom and why?
• What unintended consequences and/or risks do learners see as arising from importing ‘new’
informal modes of ICT use into the classroom setting?
• How can these issues (such as e-safety) be addressed without curtailing the informal learning
potential of ICTs?

Two points that I found very interesting though, a PEW report in 2005 found that more than half of young internet users in the U. S. had created some kind of online content, while another study, undertaken in 2006, of European youth, found that passive retrieval of information remains the most popular internet-based activity among young people, with content creation a less widely practiced activity.

And perhaps the most interesting point of all was the citing of research that said kids may not even want Web 2.0 applications used in school. "Young people’s forms of ICT use should not be simply transported or co-opted wholesale into classroom as 'young people resent having their cultural forms (mis)appropriated into schools'. They cited one article that said, "recent research with older students suggests that learners do not necessarily expect or even want to use technology in educational settings in the same manner as they do at home."

So are we wasting our time trying to find ways to integrate Web 2.0 into our classrooms or is it just too early to tell and we haven't got enough research done yet to know?


Selwyn, N. (2007). Web 2.0 applications as alternative environments for learning - a critical review. Retrieved September 12, 2009 from www.oecd.org/dataoecd/32/3/39458556.pdf