Web 2.0 Technologies in Higher Education: A Review from a Faculty ...

Zeki Kaya

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Web 2.0 Technologies in Higher Education: A Review from a Faculty ...

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• Arts

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• Publié par: alurenum
• Nombre de lectures: 84
• Langue: Français

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552 nternational Conference on New Trends in Education and Their Implications 11-13 November, 2010 ISBN: Antalya-Turkey978 605 364 104 9 Web 2.0 Technologies in Higher Education: A Review from a Faculty Member’s Perspective Erkan Tekinarslan Abant Izzet Baysal University, Faculty of Education, 14280 Bolu, Turkey [e-mail] Abstract The term Web 2.0 has been used quite often over the past five years in educational environments. Briefly, Web 2.0 technology is the term used to describe a various Web applications that allow individuals to share digital information and various materials (Thomson, 2008). Web 2.0 technologies have large potentials for higher education institutions since they are user friendly, and do not require any web design skills to participate, create and publish. The most commonly used Web 2.0 technologies are wikis, blogs and social networking tools such as Facebook. Based on the literature and personal experiences of a faculty member, this paper discusses potentials and advantages of Web 2.0 technologies in teaching and learning environments in higher education to create, share and collaborate. Keywords: Web 2.0, Blogs, Wikies, Social networking tools, Higher education INTRODUCTION With the beginning of Web 2.0, websites are moving away from isolated information storages to sources of organized content with far more developed linking of information within the site. In addition, users are less passive receivers of information and more active co-creators of content in Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs, wikis (e.g., Wikipedia) and social networking cites (e.g., Facebook) (Terdiman, 2005, cited in Mason and Rennie, 2007). A typical charcteristic of Web 2.0 technologies is that they allow site visitors or users to edit and create content, usually with a minimum of technical expertise (Holtz, 2006). One of the most popular Web 2.0 technologies is Weblog or blog which consists of a single page of entries, arranged in reverse chronological order, containingimages, sounds,videos, and hyperlinks to other blogs or web sites, and written or created by a single author or a group of authors” (Guenther, 2005, Tekinarslan, 2008). In addition, blog pages allowthe visitors to make comments about the contents and materials on the blogs. Similar to blogs, wiki, as a server software, allows users to create, edit, restructure and change a web-based content that has already been published (Choy & Ng, 2007). However, unlike a blog, a wiki is not created by single author and it allows many authors to participate when creating the site (Guenther, 2005).Wikis have been used in variety of fields such as research, information technology and in customer services areas to create a shared knowledge repository (Fichter, 2005). In addition, wiki applications in education have gained popularity in recent years. The findings of prior studies (e.g. Augar, Raitman & Zhou, 2004; Notari, 2006; Choy, & Ng, 2007) indicated that wikis are useful tools to support social activities, interactions, and collaborative learning activities in online environments. Moreover, another Web 2.0 based technology is social networking site such as Facebook and MySpace. Theseweb-based cites allow individuals to create a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, articulate a list of other social networkers with whom they share a connection, and view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system ( Boyd & Elison 2008; Munoz & Towner, 2009)The users may send visuals (e.g., photographs, images, etc.) music and videos on their sites (Thomson, 2008). Recently, social networking tools have been quite popular tools among the university students.