I came across a great presentation “Social Media & Web 2.0 for Learning (2nd Edition)” created by Mr. Zaid Alsagoff. The presentation provides many essential learning tools and useful resources that teachers can use to facilitate learning and build an effective personal learning environment and network.
Thanks for sharing this – very interesting! The description, albeit brief, about Web 1.0 and beyond really illustrates the addtions and growth of Web technologies and capabilities. I think we often forget about how things used to be and how quickly they have changed. The distinction that social media allows anyone to connect and that Web 2.0 allows anyone to publish provided a nice little reminder of what the two are. It seems as though they get muddled together when they are actually different. Although, don’t we publish (statuses, videos, etc.) on social media sites? There are so many tools to choose from, as the presentation points out, but I really believe not every tool mentioned is a good fit for education and learning. However, I do think it’s necessary to explore all of the technologies and pick-and-choose the most approriate. When it comes to leanring, I feel technologies should face a sort of ‘survial of the fittest’ contest to ensure that the best ones are being utilized to improve learning. Some technologies may be better suited for certain diciplines, while others many not. The benefits and potential that exists should definitely be explored in an effort to help, not hinder, learning. My last remark is that I wish the slide comparing the old teaching paradigm with the one of the future was larger. I’m sure the content would have really been informative.