Web 2.0 : Tools and Assessments

Should we use social media in education and learning? The answer depends on which direction you are looking from.

I can certainly understand why some young people do not want school invading their personal lives. School is school and for many young people it will always be uncool.  However we need to start thinking about the next generation of young people. For them social media may be even more integrated into their everyday lives and so it may be accepted and even assume that it's use is part and parcel of education.

However, I am in the lifelong learning arena, working with adults. They are not necessary adults who want to learn, as they are volunteers, but their everyday lives, hobbies etc blur the boundaries of compartmentalising learning into an 'other ' activity. Using social media may naturally integrate into these blurring boundaries.

We have looked at a number of different, and definitely distracting tools this week. Social bookmarking, mashups, RSS, social media, eportfolios. I think that I am not alone in finding it exciting exploring what's on offer, and wish there was a space-time vortex in order for me to spend a few days distracted by them all. And this is an important point. I am engaged in my own personal development and want to know more and learn more. But right now, I don't have the time to explore and utilise all these wonderful things.

Imagine I am the learner. In my context, many of these tools are not relevant. These learners are not researching or developing their understanding of the internet and e-tools. They are volunteers, who need to spend enough time on making sure they have the knowledge they need and can safety and successful provide great activities to young people.

To them these tools it needs to be appropriate for the context, they need to be easily accessible and they need to be simple to use. (Which moves us very nicely onto next week's topic of usability!)

Interestingly, it may be that our learning environment is already headed in the right direction. Elliot (2008) comments on how learning needs to change if we want to use online assessment. It cannot follow the traditional routes but must encompass more active learning. Assessment is less formal within the association, because by its nature it is a volunteer organisation. For us assessment is putting the knowledge into practice in the roles that people do, and the person assessing may use everything  from witness statements to seeing the person in action, to asking the learner to reflect on topics. The table below shows what Elliot says, and where I believe we are with training and assessment.

Learning and assessment should be...	Elliot says	What we do currently in the Scout Association Training Scheme...
Authentic	involving real-world knowledge and skills	Training should only be relevant for the role, and validation should be putting the skills into action in the role that they do.
Personalised	tailored to the knowledge, skills and interests of each student	The learner decides what method they want to learn and validate with help of training adviser. If they want to do more they do.
Negotiated	agreed between the learner and the teacher	This is agreed between the learner and the Training Adviser and monitored by the line manager
Engaging	involving the personal interests of the student	This is the area we need to work on. Often it is not engaging for the learner because the local training provision isn't or because they have chosen the wrong methods.
Recognise existing skills	willing to accredit the student's existing work	Recognise prior experience which may mean that no extra learning is needed.
Deep	assessing deep knowledge - not memorisation	Validation is a mixture of methods as well as discussion with a Training Adviser to ensure that the knowledge had embedded
Problem oriented	original tasks requiring genuine problem solving skills	This is another area where developments are needed, but as training materials are re-written is being looked at. There needs to be real life example for people to work through.
Collaboratively Produced	produced in partnership with fellow students	Although the method is often learning by doing and teamwork, I am not sure how one would transfer this to validation. Some work to be done I think.
Peer and self assessed	involving self reflection and peer review	Volunteers train volunteers who assess volunteers and so on. More need to be encouraged so that the idea of
Tool Supported	encouraging the use of ICT	My main aim........

Reading list

RSS feeds

Richardson, W. (2005) A Quick Start Guide for Educators,[online]http://weblogg-ed.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/05/RSSFAQ4.pdf
(Accessed 6 April 2011).

Ashwin, A., Pitts, K. and Ramsden, A. (undated) Using RSS News Feeds to Deliver Timely, Easily Updated Content, Skills for Access, [online]http://www.skillsforaccess.org.uk/casestudies.php?id=127 (Accessed 6 April 2011).

D’Souza, Q. (undated) RSS Ideas for Educators, [online]http://www.teachinghacks.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/01/RSS%20Ideas%20for%20Educators111.pdf(Accessed 6 April 2011).

Social Bookmarking

Hammond, T., Hannay, T., Lund, B. and Scott, J. (2005) ‘Social bookmarking tools (1): a general review’ [online], D-Lib Magazine, vol. 11, no. 4;[online]http://www.dlib.org/dlib/april05/hammond/04hammond.html(Accessed 6 April 2011)

Iskold, A. (2006) The Social Bookmarking Faceoff [online], Read/WriteWeb, September, [online] http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/social_bookmarking_faceoff.php(Accessed 6 April 2011).

Social Networking

Phipps, L. (2007) Web 2.0 and Social Software: An Introduction[online], Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC); [online]http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/publications/web2socialsoftwarev1.aspx(Accessed 6 April 2011).

The Guardian (2007) Students Tell Universities: Get out of MySpace[online],http://education.guardian.co.uk/students/news/story/0,,2205512,00.html(6 April 2011).

Assessments online

Elliott, B. (2008) Assessment 2.0: Modernising Assessment in the Age of Web 2.0 [online], Scottish Qualifications Authority; available fromhttp://www.scribd.com/doc/461041/Assessment-20 (Accessed 6 April 2011).

Whitelock, D. (forthcoming) ‘Activating assessment for learning: are we on the way with Web 2.0?’ in Lee, M.J.W. and McLoughlin, C. (eds)Web 2.0-based e-Learning: Applying Social Informatics for Tertiary Teaching, Hersey, PA, IGI Glob