Web 2.0 tools and techniques

Web 2.0 tools and techniques
Mark Drechsler
Professional Services Manager
NetSpot Pty Ltd

Today’s presentation
Why Web 2.0?
The cases for and against
Examples of some Moodle tools...
... and alternatives
How to decide which one is right for you

What is Web 2.0?
“all about participation, collaboration, interactivity, communication, community-building, sharing, networking, creativity”
- Meg Poore

Web 2.0 in the educational context

User-constructed content promotes progressive teaching methods
Ability to connect knowledge beyond the traditional boundaries of learning

What does it mean in practice
No longer restricted to ‘dump and pump’
Multiple options for a given problem
Opens up vast new possibilities...
... and many potential risks

Aside: A few ways that Web2.0 tools are being used at the Moodleposium & Moodlepracticum

What does Web 2.0 look like?
Web 2.0 ≠ free web tools
...well not always anyway.

Web 2.0
Point/counterpoint

Web 2.0: Point/counterpoint
All Web2.0 tools are high risk, and by God we’ll block every last one of them, especially YouTube!

Man, kids are using these tools anyway, so like, uh, just accept what you can’t change man...

And when we get sued because of someone losing everything in one of these tools what happens then smart guy? Huh?

Dude, these tools are more stable than most of the stuff we use here anyway...
and so on...

Well what about Web 2.0 in Moodle?
Moodle has many tools such as blogs, wikis, RSS and glossaries
Generally not as fully featured as a purpose-built tool

Two examples in Moodle
The Moodle Wiki
The Moodle Blog

Example 1: the Wiki
Moodle’s (current) wiki:

Simple (is that good or bad?)
Doesn’t push grades to the Gradebook
Nicely linked to Moodle groups
No file upload capability for students

Wiki alternatives
Other wiki options for Moodle

Ouwiki – currently used by the OU & others
Nwiki

External wiki tools

Mediawiki – powerful, but complex
Wikispaces – easy to use, popular

Example 2: the Blog
Moodle’s (current) blog:

Provides one per student (no course blogs)
Nice tagging features
No file upload capability for students
No commenting capabilities

Blog alternatives
Mahara

Integrated with Moodle
Multiple blogs
Better features, good access control

Blogger, Wordpress

Great features
Widely used

Why can’t Moodle’s 2.0 tools be better?
Well...

Some of them will be (Wiki, Workshop, Messaging& more) in Moodle 2.0
Some of them just don’t need to be – simplicity is the key

The continuum of control
Increased risk
Better features
Increased control
Better integration

So what’s to be done?
One (of many) ways to analyse is by considering, on a case by case basis, the

Feature set
Usability
Risk

of each option.

Consider three cases
LMS tool (from one extreme)
Uncontrolled external tool (to the other)
Managed integration (and the middle ground)

Core Moodle:

‘True’ Web2.0:

Supported
plugin:

Questions to ask
How much is the need being driven by educational need vs personal preference?
What are the specific functions required to solve the problem?
How ‘high risk’ is the work to be done (for more information on this, go see Meg Poore’s presentation)

Questions to ask
Is there a Moodle plugin available at http://moodle.org?
Is there a supported tool that could be integrated (possibly in the longer term)?
If an unsupported tool is the best option, then what needs to be done to reduce risk?

Web 2.0 tools and Moodle:
One problem,
Many solutions.
All have merit,
One might be optimal.

Questions?