Usage of web tool 2 for self studies and its benefits

What is Web 2.0 tool ? Web 2.0 tools can very broadly be defined as enduser applications that require dynamic interaction, social networking, or user interfacing between people and information. They almost always have accompanying websites and associated apps for smart devices. In Web 2.0 environment users decide how they want to use, interact with, and create information. In addition, users have the ability to generate and manipulate content from multiple locations in a Web 2.0 environment. Users can add images, videos, or links to other media content. Students have unlimited opportunities to individualize the content they embed in their products, and the ease of use of these tools encourages student creativity. Unlike traditional pen and paper type responses, students are not limited by their own artistic abilities, page-length, or word count limits. Students will often go beyond the basic expectations of an assignment because these tools facilitate students’ creative processes. According to Thomson’s opinion (2007), users not only find information on the internet, but they also create and share content. Web 2.0 technologies - such as blogs, wikis, podcasting, social bookmarking, and social networking sites - have allowed users to easily publish content online and to connect and network with other people from all over the world who have similar interests. The use of tags particularly enables us to collectively categorize and find content easily.

Familiar examples of Web 2.0 sites and tools include wikis and blogs (PBworks and WordPress), image and video hosting sites (Flicker and YouTube), social networking sites (Facebook and Twitter), and applications to generate Web content for education, business, and social purposes (Wikipedia, Weebly, and Instagram).

The advantages of the method is endless. One of the benefits of Web 2.0 tools is their ease of use. Most students find these tools to be intuitive and userfriendly. Because of this, there is little time wasted in learning how to use the programs. The tools facilitate interactive learning and innovative responses to assignments and assessments. Students see their ideas take shape quickly, and they are rewarded with professional-looking results. It is also easy to edit the projects as they are being developed so students tend to take more risks during the creative process. This ease of use combined with the quality of the finished products increases students’ self-efficacy, and it motivates students to engage more earnestly and actively in the content of their responses.

b) interaction

Web 2,0 tool

c) flexibility

d) writing and technology skills

Knowledge creation . Web 2.0 technologies enable students to “become creators of knowledge.” As one noted, Web 2.0 technologies give students “the opportunity to create content themselves instead of just listening to lectures,” and this supports active and student-centered learning in which students take responsibility for their learning. Web 2.0 technologies create an environment where a teacher becomes a facilitator of learning rather than a distributor of knowledge.

Ease of use and flexibility . Web 2.0 tools are easy-to-use and flexible. while some of the traditional course management systems (CMS) are too static, Web 2.0 tools remove time constraints by providing a more flexible learning environment that is not inhibited to classroom walls.

Writing and technology skills . Web 2.0 technologies help students become more proficient in writing and in the application of technology.

In addition to these four major benefits, the participants also mentioned that using Web 2.0 technologies “helps teachers understand a little more about the world of their students,” and “motivates the students.”

As addressed above, Web 2.0 technologies have “blurred the line between producers and consumers of content and has shifted attention from access to information toward access to other people” (Brown & Adler, 2008, p. 18). Emphasizing a participatory culture, Web 2.0 technologies encourage and enable teachers and learners to share ideas and collaborate in innovative ways. They also force educators to rethink the way we teach and learn and to transform our education practices so that we can support more active and meaningful learning that involves “learning to be” as well as “learning about.” Learners’ critical thinking skills can be enhanced through the opportunity to regularly compare their own contributions to those of their peers, and the affirmation of their relative standing in the class may be powerful motivation for learning (Hurlburt, 2008). Thus, Web 2.0 technologies has the ability to “support active and social learning, provide opportunities and venues for student publication, provide opportunities to provide effective and efficient feedback to learners, and provide opportunities to scaffold learning in the student’s Zone of Proximal Development” (Hartshorne & Ajjan, 2009; Vygotsky, 1978). In addition, Web 2.0 provides numerous opportunities for social interactions and collaboration among students, teachers, subject matter experts, professionals in different fields, as well as a host of others with related interests.

The pedagogical benefits of Web 2.0 have been well documented in the literature. However, most of the existing studies on the use of Web 2.0 technologies in teaching and learning environments have been anecdotal in nature or in the form of case studies. Huang, Yoo, and Choi’s (2008) study, for example, found that correlation exists between learning style and learners’ preferences and attitudes towards using Web 2.0 technologies. Lambert and Kidd’s (2008) explored the potential impact of the design of Web 2.0

environments on cognitive load. While such studies are collectively useful in providing a broader view of issues surrounding instructional uses of Web 2.0 technologies, they are limited in scope, as they address such issues within the context of one or two courses.

Today’s students are “digital natives” (Prensky, 2007), and make increasing use of Web 2.0 technologies in their daily lives. In order to effective use of web 2.0 tools for instruction is the challenge of creating meaningful assignments to promote desired learning outcomes. Ill-designed assignment with no visible connection to the overall purpose of the course not only frustrates students, it decreases students’ interest in using the tool, and results in little or no learning (Reynard, 2009). According to Hurlburt (2008), there are “invisible aspects” to facilitating learning in the social network environments. In addition to the visible aspect of designing effective learning environments with these tools, educators also need to serve as coach, mentor, cheerleader, as well as task master to their students when the expected learner participation does not materialize.

In a nutshell, Web 2.0 could be characterized by openness, user participation, knowledge sharing, social networking and collaboration, user-created content, and folksonomy (Alexander, 2006; Brown & Adler, 2008; Downes, 2005; Thompson, 2007; Richardson, 2009).