Web 2.0 Technologies for Digital Students (original) (raw)

Students' Acceptance of Web 2.0 Technologies in Higher Education: Findings from a Survey in a Romanian University

2010 Workshops on Database and Expert Systems …, 2010

This paper reports findings from a survey on students' attitude towards the use of Web 2.0 tools in a Romanian university. The purpose of the study is threefold: i) establish students' initial level of familiarity with various Web 2.0 tools, as well as their usage habits (time spent, frequency of accesses, purpose of use); ii) capture students' feedback after a practical learning experience involving the use of social software (in terms of ease-of-use, perceived usefulness, advantages and disadvantages); iii) analyze students' general opinion regarding the prospective large-scale introduction of Web 2.0 technologies in education. To this end, students participated in a team project assignment which required the use of blogs and wikis and were asked to fill in two opinion questionnaires. The paper provides a detailed report of the results, together with a discussion of findings and lessons learned.

Do Web 2.0 Tools Really Open the Door to Learning? Practices, Perceptions and Profiles of 11-16-Year-Old Students

Learning, Media and Technology, 2009

In this paper, we report on survey and focus group data relating to the activities and perceptions of learning with Web 2.0 technologies of students aged between 11 and 16 years in 27 UK secondary schools. The study confirms that these learners had high levels of access to Web 2.0 technologies and that Web 2.0 activities were prolific. However, patterns of use were complex. The types of activity evidenced by the study suggest that learners can be categorised into four main groups: (1) researchers: mainly in terms of reading with little evidence of critical enquiry or analytical awareness; (2) collaborators: mainly with respect to file sharing, gaming and communicating; (3) producers and (4) publishers: mainly in terms of sharing experience through social networking sites. Whilst most expressed an interest in using online technologies to support familiar school activities, such as presentations or for communication, learners seemed cautious about other values associated with Web 2.0 tools, such as the shared construction of knowledge in a public format. Few learners were familiar with the complete spectrum of Web 2.0 activities and only a small number were engaging in more sophisticated activities, such as producing and publishing self‐created content for wider consumption. There was little evidence of groundbreaking activities and only a few embryonic signs of criticality, self‐management or metacognitive reflection. The paper concludes that these higher order thinking skills need to be encouraged and supported in any attempt to use Web 2.0 for learning in formal education.

Beyond Web 2.0: mapping the technology landscapes of young learners

Journal of computer assisted learning, 2009

Boundaries between formal and informal learning settings are shaped by influences beyond learners' control. This can lead to the proscription of some familiar technologies that learners may like to use from some learning settings. This contested demarcation is not well documented. In this paper, we introduce the term ‘digital dissonance’ to describe this tension with respect to learners' appropriation of Web 2.0 technologies in formal contexts. We present the results of a study that explores learners' in- and out-of-school use of Web 2.0 and related technologies. The study comprises two data sources: a questionnaire and a mapping activity. The contexts within which learners felt their technologies were appropriate or able to be used are also explored. Results of the study show that a sense of ‘digital dissonance’ occurs around learners' experience of Web 2.0 activity in and out of school. Many learners routinely cross institutionally demarcated boundaries, but the implications of this activity are not well understood by institutions or indeed by learners themselves. More needs to be understood about the transferability of Web 2.0 skill sets and ways in which these can be used to support formal learning.

An evaluation of the usage of Web 2.0 among tertiary level students in Malaysia

2010

Web 2.0 is increasingly becoming a familiar pedagogical tool in higher education, facilitating the process of teaching and learning. But this advancement in information technology has further provoked the problems like plagiarism and other academic misconduct. This paper evaluates the patterns of use and behavior of tertiary level students towards the use of Web 2.0 as an alternative and supplemental eLearning Portal. A total of 92 students' data were collected and analyzed according to [1] 'Self-Determination Theory' (SDT). It was found that students use social websites for chatting, gamming and sharing files. Facebook, YouTube and Wikipedia are ranked as the most popular websites used by college students. It also reveals that students have an inherent desire of expressing ideas and opinion online openly and independently. This sense of freedom makes students feel more competent, autonomous or participative and find learning to be less tedious. Therefore, this report, recommends educators to adopt strategies for acknowledging students' feelings and activities online to reinforce positive behavior effective learning. Finally, we discussed the implications of Web 2.0 on education.

Students’ Internet and Web 2.0 Use: A Case of Burdur’s Middle Schools

2014

This study focused on students’ use of Internet and web 2.0 technologies for general and educational uses in terms of gender, technologies ownership, Internet connection, Internet and computer skills levels and years of use. 350 middle school students and two IT teachers were participated to the study. Descriptive data collected through a survey that designed by the researchers and based on these results, semi-structured interviews were conducted with their teachers. The results indicated that students with high confidence on computer and Internet use preferred to use social networking, video sharing and game sites than blogs, wikis e-mail services and cloud technologies like google drive for their general Internet and computer use. They use these technologies for homework and practice the previous content than communicating with their peers and teachers and also for educational games and educational videos. The findings obtained through teachers supports the data gathered from the ...

Undergraduate perceptions of the usefulness of Web 2.0 in higher education: Survey development

… at the European Conference on E- …, 2009

Recent research has highlighted how teaching and learning can benefit from the inclusion of Web 2.0applications like blogs, wikis, and social bookmarking in higher education. However, there is insufficient empirical evidence to support the discipline-specific usefulness of certain new technologies over others. This paper reports on the development of a pilot survey that assesses undergraduates’ use and their perceptions of the usefulness of Web 2.0 technologies in higher education. Focus groups were conducted with undergraduates (n=21) from different disciplines (Arts, Communication, Education, Mathematics, Engineering, and Sciences) to get digital native input for the proposed survey. The term ‘Web 2.0’ was deemed by participants as problematic and not commonly understood by undergraduates. They suggested the use of the term ‘new technologies’ and specific names of applications, e.g. Facebook instead of ‘social networking’. Likewise, participants discussed several interpretations of ‘Web 2.0 use’ in higher education, resulting in more clarity in survey questions and options. The importance of subject-matter or learning goals when teaching with Web 2.0 became clear as participants highlighted the usefulness of certain Web 2.0 applications over others for their respective disciplines. Online discussions or blogs, audio or video podcasts of classroom lectures, and collaborative document sharing (Google Documents) were found to be the most useful technologies across disciplines. Students’ prior use of new technologies in on-campus courses greatly influenced their perceptions of their usefulness in higher education. Participants in the focus groups as well as the resulting pilot survey (n=26 ) did not perceive social networking tools to be useful to teaching or learning. Despite the small sample size, both the focus groups and the survey pilot described here provide insight into the digital native perspective for instructors seeking to integrate Web 2.0tools into their teaching.

Web 2.0 and Higher Education: Pedagogical Implications

Education is arguably one of the most important issues that any Society must discuss and need to consider its reinforcement. Colleges and Universities have the key role in promoting high quality and reliable education and the knowledge development, but are far from being the only (or even the main) source of information and knowledge nowadays, due to the expansion of new forms of communication (most notably the Internet). In places like Europe and the United States, there is a new generation of students entering Higher Education institutions which has grown within an environment where information technology has opened unprecedented opportunities of social interaction and peer-construction of knowledge. Also, the emergence of social software has enabled people to connect and collaborate throughout computer. This paper discusses the use of Web 2.0 in a Higher Education context.

Web 2.0 as a Potential for Development of Young People

Subject review The research aims to determine how well today's students know and use Web 2.0 architecture, as well as why they use applications based on Web 2.0 architecture. The sample in this study consisted of 103 students of both sexes, aged 20 ÷ 30 on two faculties and two study programs. The research was conducted using questionnaires as a research technique in which Web 2.0 was investigated by the indicators of computer, information and communication aspects. The questionnaire consisted of 23 questions, and was specially created for this research. The survey was conducted between May and July 2012 at the Faculty of Economics and Engineering Management in Novi Sad and the Faculty of Management in Sport in Belgrade. Web 2.0 kao potencijal za razvoj mladih Pregledni članak Cilj istraživanja je utvrditi koliko današnji studenti dobro poznaju i koriste Web 2.0 arhitekturu, kao i razloge zašto koriste aplikacije temeljene na Web 2.0 arhitekturi. Uzorak (N = 103) u ovom istraživ...

Enhancing the use of Web 2.0 Technologies in Higher Education: Students’ and Lectures’ Views

2016

Learning quality enhancement with Web 2.0 tools needs good implementation framework and lessons from best practice. However, there is not much research on what constitutes best practice in the implementation of Web 2.0 in learning activities. This research seeks to fill this gap by seeking the views of students and lecturers on increased adoption of Web 2.0 social tools in learning activities. The research reports on the quantitative and qualitative study carried out in UK. This research reveals that improved learning experience with the use of Web 2.0 tools in higher education is positively related to perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, prior knowledge, motivation to use, social factors, facilitating condition and performance expectancy. Keywords: Technology adoption, social technology tools, teaching and learning INTRODUCTION Research shows that the impact of using technology in learning is hard to distinguish from the effect of other support that may accompany its use, e...