Exploring compatibility between Web 2.0 and educational institutions: examples and reflections

1. Exploring compatibility between Web 2.0 and educational institutions: examples and reflections Éric Bruillard IUFM de Créteil, STEF ENS Cachan INRP

2. Schools meet Web… 2.0? Can we predict possible ICT effects in an evolving context?

3. A pessimistic view? • A wink at Cuban article: Computers meet classroom. Classroom wins. • A classical story: very innovative potentialities, some innovators very engaged, “science” proves educational interest, problems reported by teachers, very low generalization (…another new tech appears) • Is it possible to escape Cuban cycle? (without destroying schools) • What about old convincing examples?

4. Advertisement, Rank audio visual, 1966

5. How to foresee what will happen? • An evolving technology: difficult to imagine what will offer technology • New social practices (ex. Second Life): which practices will be adopted? • Which policy to match changing technology and new social practices?

6. The student desk / year 2000 (Dieuzeide, Le rêve dans les années 1965)

7. A more optimistic view? • Limits of Cuban analysis: • Fits educational technology and ICT (web and others) is more than that • Distance education already requires ICT, and web 2.0 can be seen as improvements • New technology (social technology), new learning paradigms (new practices) will transform old institutions?

8. Towards a massively relational internet (Cardon) Web 1.0 Web 2.0 Blogs, pictures, videos, calendar, etc. Primarily many-to-many. More group oriented publishing & collaboration. More conversation. Modality does not matter. Open. Voice, IM, E-mail. Primarily 1-to-1 Less group oriented. More direct. More Messaging. Closed.

9. Usenet newsgroups (http://netscan.research.microsoft.com/treemap/)

10. New learning paradigms • Two main paradigms (Sfard): • Acquisition (existing savoirs or written knowledge to be reconstructed in educational institutions) • Participation (building knowledge within communities) • A third one: knowledge creation (activity theory)

11. Metaphor: knowledge creation Paavola et Hakkarainen(2003)

12. New potentialities leading to new activities? • Relies upon actors (teachers…) to use it in their context according to a number of constraints • Requires processes : innovation, explanation (writing), internal dissemination (professional communities), legitimation (legitimacy process, social acceptance in a given milieu)

13. To be discussed • Notion of integration (ICT integration in schools) • ministry or policy maker vision, but often an obstacle to understand the process. What is supposed to be integrated (ICT) is evolving and is also transformed by and during the process. • A vision of what is supposed to be “to be done”, steps are proposed or a sort of linear model including successive stages. • Teachers’ resistance? Some research: • Relationship to ICT; study of social or clinic representations (Rinaudo) • Which roles plays the research?

14. Which innovation ? • An imposed or chosen innovation? • Choice of the actors • Choice of the institution (policy makers, deans…) • … Is it unavoidable ? Self achieving prophecy? • ICT are not intrinsically educative (education is not in the instrument but in the intention of somebody) • Problematic link with innovation, needs in depth interrogation: tensions linked to deployment contexts

15. Tensions ICT / innovation • No general theory available, but some findings : • Different interpretations of technologies, developments in contradiction with initial visions • A naïve vision of ICT and of transparency of their use • An economical and administrative context that can be very inductive • Issues linked to identity and identity construction • New territories to share, to conquer • Multiple examples

16. Substituting the teacher? • Distance education limited to document access, few activities, low support : it does not work • Requirements: human mediation, tutors, but it becomes again costly • Support tutoring activities by the group itself, reinvent classrooms: distant collaborative learning, pedagogical choice or economical asset?

17. Learning objects normalisation • Internet: free access to a huge quantity of resources, giving freedom to teachers and a total control • Normalised description processes (ex. LOM), escaping from control of designers and users Not neutral normalisations “Transparent” processes to retrieve them, no more control • Concerning scenarios: models for better design formation or better control it?

18. Free (freeware) textbook • Just like the freeware (linux…) • Economical point of view • But is it working in the same way? • Producing collectively: • Learning effect for contributors • Growing acceptance ? Innovation ? • The number leads to the “best”?

19. Wikipedia case • World wide encyclopedia in many languages: an unexpected success giving new ideas for textbooks • Contents with good quality, comparable to renowned encyclopedias (error rate), but • Pedagogical, reduction to be more easily understandable • Neutrality principle (politically correct?), consensus based upon evidence or facts. What about specific point of view? Digital Maoism (Lanier)? No acceptation in an education driven by values • Which innovation (apart the availability and many contributors shares) • Interest towards dynamical processes of elaboration. Which quality curve (a plateaun then diminishing)? Validation process requires history visualization (and new competencies) • Can become an instrument of collective pressure

20. History flows The history flow application charts the evolution of a document as it is edited by many people using a very simple visualization technique (Viégas et al., 2004; IBM)

21. Manuel Sesamath « Sésamath 5e est un manuel complet, conforme aux nouveaux programmes de 5e, assez classique dans l'organisation (en chapitres, puis dans chaque chapitre, par rubriques : méthodes, activités, exercices...) et dans la qualité d'édition (qualité de la couverture, de la mise en page et de l'impression) » (designers’ discourse)

22. Sesamath • First, it is a textbook (form with great resonance), a classical textbook • Subject matter unique reference and stable (few links with research) • Recommended usage of computer instruments • Which innovation? • Reinforcement of control

23. Out of control e-portfolios • “a purposeful collection of student work that demonstrates effort, progress and achievement over time”. (NW evaluation association) • Genetic and reflexive aspects play a key role, articulated with three main goals (Barrett, 2003) : • to sum up the works done by a student ; • to give him the opportunity to reflect upon what he/she has learned in doing these works and upon what she is now able to do; • identify needs and goals for future learning. • Three fruitful metaphors (Diez, 1994): mirror, map and sonnet. • Two different and opposite views of teachers’ portfolios • Narrative and reflective (reflective practitioner, story during formation) • Lists of competencies and standards with attestations (certificates)

24. A sliding of meaning? • Highly structured portfolios (on line databases) according to uniformity needs for evaluation data of an institution: from authentic and reflective evaluation to data aggregation for accreditation • Practical problems and power issues change orientations. • Two opposite processes: • The first one dealing with activities and projects; • The second one dealing at action and tests level (lists of standards or elementary competencies).

25. A short story: portfolios for preservice teachers in France • 2000: no real interest (except in one IUFM, Caen, 2003) • 2006: with the informatics and internet certificate, interest in a database model of e-portfolio (the model used in Caen appears to be an obstacle) • Next year, new rules, cancellation of dissertation (30 pages), search of a model of shorter professional writing for teacher • Last week: Portfolios appear to be a possible solution (narrative model)

26. Technology, users, practices, contexts Users and blogs

27. Generation gap ?

28. I Communication des intériorités II Clan III Affinités électives IV Prise de position Taxonomy of blogs: four ways of linking persons by statements Publicité Visibilité Dominique Cardon, Hélène Delaunay-Teterel

29. Le blog de Lise: "Voila mon Ange c toi et c com ca ke je t'Aime :)." Ben voila va laurez compri a traver ces foto, cette fille aime la vie depuis ca tte petite enfance…….. En tt cas elle c bien sourir :) Voila mon Ange c toi et c com ca ke je t'Aime :). Lycéenne de 16 ans Enseignement général Lyon centre

30. Teenagers’ blogs • A PDH thesis (Fluckiger): appropriation of ICT by teenagers, How young students (12-16) acquire competencies • Hypothesis: articulation between school and family, with help of friends • Main result: the main impulse (pressure) comes from the group • Question of identity construction of the adolescent: skyblogs for teenager culture, reinforcement of the clan

31. Low secondary school Lycée Blogrolls of teeager Skyblogs Autre collège From Cédric Fluckiger, "La sociabilité juvénile instrumentée : l'appropriation des blogs dans un groupe de collégiens"

32. Other examples… • Instruments used by actors with other projects • Contexts give meaning and direction to innovation • But, some initiative margin remains for actors, to develop their own innovations. • Use of platforms modify current equilibrium, obstacles (resistances) to a process of modification of borders

33. Concluding remarks • On the one hand, new technologies (web 2.0) have the potential to change education and many innovators provide interesting and pertinent examples. • On the other hand, educational institutions and policy makers take into account new ideas, especially if there are pushed by important groups (lobbies), but have to propose possible and acceptable changes, without really controlling effects of their decisions. • No technological determinism • No direct or simple transfer between innovators and standard users but a modified heritage from the first experiments reinterpreted by actors • Personal use of ICT can be in opposition with collective educative use (new fashion victims?)

34. Some perspectives • Web 2.0 is not an entity (a lot of different initiatives and tools) • Integration is not a good concept: changing professional identity, legitimating new practices • Importance of context that gives technology its meaning • Outside school practices to be taken into account

35. School and family have to unify their educative attitude

36. A free access journal www.sticef.org Discussion forums in education http://www.dep.u-picardie.fr/sidir/articles/index.php http://www.caen.iufm.fr/colloque_iartem/acte.html