Bonderup Dohn, Nina. (2008). Knowledge 2.0 – tensions and challenges for education. Proceedings of the 6^th International Conference on Networked Learning. URL: http://www.networkedlearningconference.org.uk/abstracts/PDFs/Bonderup_Dohn_650-657.pdf.

This article should be of interest to anyone who is interested in understanding the impact of Web 2.0 on education. The author, who is from the University of Southern Denmark, describes the characteristics of Web 2.0 as (quoted):

• collaborative and/or distributed authorship
• active, open-access, ‘bottom-up’ participation and interactive multi-way communication
• continuous production, reproduction, and transformation of material in use and reuse across contexts
• openness of content, renunciation of copyright, distributed ownership
• lack of finality, ‘awareness-in-practice’ of the ‘open-endedness’ of the activity
• taking place on the WWW, or to a large extent utilizing web-mediated resources and activities

She also describes the pros and cons of Web 2.0. But, what I felt was the most significant part of her paper was the focus on the integration of Web 2.0 practices rather than just Web 2.0 technologies. She very correctly suggests that the technologies may be integrated into a course, but not be used in Web 2.0 ways. On the other hand, Web 1.0 tools could be used successfully in Web 2.0 ways. For example, an instructor could circulate a Word document among a group of students could each, in turn, edit the document. A group of students could all have FTP access to a website or have editing access to an LMS course. There are many ways of integrating practices without the actual tools.

The other point that I found to be of great significance in this article is the discussion on evaluation and the effect on participation in Web 2.0. “Participation in Web 2.0 practices is for the sake of qualifying the participation in them, whereas participation in educational practices is for the sake of qualifying to get out of them.” In other words, people join communities for many personal reasons including the desire to maintain membership. However, participation in educational situations happens for different purposes—one of which is to complete a credential or receive credit for completion. The author also points out the problems in evaluation resulting from “issues like the role of collaboration in learning, the subject matter and criteria relevant for evaluation, and the status of the material produced by students.”

I also appreciated the underlying description of the nature of Web 2.0 activity compared to educational activity. In Web 2.0 contexts, lurking is of less concern by members because the participants are there for personal reasons. How they acquire information or interact with the community is a personal choice. In educational contexts, educators are concerned with levels of participation and course-related goals. The author describes Web 2.0 activity as “bottom-up” without “designated experts to control the quality of interaction and production.” She suggests that involvement of such an expert can interfere with the interaction and spirit of the interactions taking place. Instructors attempting to implement Web 2.0 practices cannot simply stand by and watch because their official responsibilities obligate them to behave in teacher ways.

So, this leaves us with a question:

• can Web 2.0 practices be successfully integrated into educational settings without destroying the nature of the practices themselves? Would it still be Web 2.0?