Key quotations from a book chapter by Neil Selwyn for the basis of academic conversation.

1. WEB 2.0 AND THE SCHOOL OF THE
FUTURE, TODAY
Book Chapter by Neil Selwyn
London Knowledge Lab, Institute of
Education, University of London, United
Kingdom
EDUC9701 Reading Discussion

2. The key points of this presentation
• What is Web 2.0 and why is it of educational importance?
• The realities of Web 2.0 use in schools
• The “problem” of schools in a Web 2.0 world
• Replacing the school with Web 2.0 technologies
• Reinventing the school through Web 2.0 technology
• Towards a more reasoned response Conclusion: Towards
a more critical understanding

3. What is Web 2.0?
• “In a technical sense, Web 2.0 can be argued to refer to
an increased socialisation of internet tools, applications
and services” (p. 24).
• “Web 2.0 practices have a strong affinity with socio-
cultural accounts of „authentic‟ learning. Where knowledge
is co-constructed by learners with the support of
communal social settings – taking the form of constantly
reassessed „collective agreement‟” (p. 25).

4. Web 2.0 use in schools
• “While much hope and excitement surrounds the
educational potentials of Web 2.0 tools and
applications, many education technologists
remain profoundly frustrated by the apparent lack
of effective Web 2.0 use in schools” (p. 26)
• “Concerns are … beginning to be raised that Web
2.0 technologies do not appear to be used to their
full potential even in relatively well-
resourced, „high-technology‟ classrooms” (p.26)

5. • The narrow nature of web 2.0 use in school to
engage students in learning content with other
learners in” bounded and passive ways rather than
supporting unconstrained active interaction with
information and knowledge” (p. 27).
• “… co-operation rather than collaboration between
individuals” (p. 27).
• “A clash between the communitarian ideals of many
education technology designers and the rather more
„closed‟ approaches towards technology based
learners which are fostered” in school practices.

6. The „problem‟
• “Some aspects of Web 2.0 use „fit‟ better than others with
the realities of contemporary schools and schooling” (p.
28)
• Educationalists have “started to search for reasons that
may underpin the apparent „failure‟ of Web 2.0
technologies in schools” (p. 28).

7. Some of the problems identified have been:
• A continued reliance on broadcast
pedagogies, structured hierarchical relationships
and formal systems of regulation (p. 28)
• School buildings “are architecturally unsuitable
for widespread networked and wireless
technology use” (p. 29).
• Teachers are “too old, incompetent or
disinterested to integrate Web 2.0 application
into their teaching” (p. 29).
• Students “lack the skills or application to make
the most of educational (rather than leisure)
application of Web 2.0 applications and tools” (p.
29).

8. • “School leaders and administrators are felt to lack
the required direction or foresight to adopt
collective and communal approaches into their
school organisation and management” (p. 29).
• “School curricula are criticised as remaining to
rigid and entrenched in top-down paradigms of
information transfer” (p. 29).

9. Replacing the school with Web 2.0
• “In the minds of some commentators, the seriousness of
the „school problem‟ [leaves] little choice but to renounce
the school as a viable site for learning. … the school is a
„dead‟ site for technology use that will never be able to
adapt sufficiently” (p. 29).
• “… children are better of learning amongst themselves
through Web 2.0 and other internet technologies-gaining
an education through the “hard fun” of creating and
playing online….” (p. 29).
• “… the first steps in a radical rethinking and
reorganisation of existing structures and organisation of
education provision” (p. 31).

10. Reinventing the school
• „Re-schooling’ arguments “are built around the
active communal creation of knowledge (rather
than passive individual consumption), and imbued
with a sense of play, expression, reflection and
exploration” (p. 31).
• “the school and classroom is deliberately learner-
centred – focused on learner participation and
creativity and online identity formation, and how
these intersect with, support or suggest desired
competencies, teaching practices and policies” (p.
31).

11. Towards a more reasoned response to
Web 2.0 and the school of the future
• “At first glance, … these responses and arguments
appear perfectly well-reasoned and sensible” (p. 33).
• “There is an undoubted need to reconcile schooling with
the challenges of digital technologies, and it makes sense
to sketch out ideas for how systems of schooling that
have not fundamental changed since the beginning of the
twentieth century can be brought up to date with twenty-
first century life” (p.33)

12. • “… it should be observed that current discussions
of Web 2.0 and schools repeat a long-standing
tendency in education for exaggerated and
extreme reaction to technology that are centred
around matters of learning and teaching rather
than the wider social, political, economic and
cultural contexts of education” (p. 33).
• Debates perpetuate a “technologically
deterministic” perspective that “social progress is
driven by technological innovation, which in turn
follows an „inevitable‟ course” (p. 33).

13. • “As such it is important to recognise the ideological
underpinnings of the current Web 2.0 drive in education.
Indeed, it should be clear … that current discussions over
Web 2.0 and schools reflect a number of ongoing debates
about education and society that are highly ideological in
nature” (p. 33).

14. Conclusion: Towards a more critical
understanding
• “Debates about schools and Web 2.0 are not simply about
matters of Internet bandwidth or the pedagogic
affordances of wikis” (p. 35)
• “… it is crucial to recognise that Web 2.0 is a
contradictory, inconsistent and polemic notion - there is no
neat, unproblematic “Web 2.0” solution to the deficiencies
of twenty-first century education” (p. 35)

15. • “ the debate about the role of the new technology
in society and in schools is not and must not be
just about the technical correctness of what
computers can and cannot do. These may be the
least important kinds of questions, in fact.
Instead, at the very core of the debate are the
ideological and ethical issues concerning what
schools should be about and whose interests
they should serve” (Apple, 2002, p. 442 cited p.
36).

16. Discussion
1. What are the current debates occurring in your school
or organisation related to the use of technology?
2. How can we alter the relationships between formal and
informal frames of in-school technology use without
undermining basic traditional structures and interests?