Web 2.0: A Social Constructivist Approach

(image: Cool Town Studios. http://www.cooltownstudios.com/images/web2.0.jpg)

Social constructivism is the ‘it’ teaching strategy at the moment as it focuses on the learner as the central figure in the mediation of information. The focus is on children learning through doing, which involves active participation in activities and discussions and essentially students being the constructors of their own knowledge. Students enter the classroom with their own set of values and beliefs, which varies from student to student. No two students are the same, therefore various teaching strategies need to be employed.

Web 2.0 is focused on:

1. Active web authoring -anyone can create webpages and articles. 
2. Continuous interaction between users all over the world - blogs and discussion boards and also collaborative learning sites, such as wikipedia.

Web 2.0 coincides with the social constructivist approach, in that students are always engaging in what they are doing and are creating information at the same time as receiving information. Internet users are autonomous and can choose to maintain anonymity while actively engaging with a variety of websites and resources.

Blogs can be useful in a schools setting, as a way in which students can communicate with users in the classroom and around the world. An exciting element with blogs is the fact that they can be edited and that no information is permanent. This is a very different concept to the traditional pen and paper technology, which is very much a permanent action. Students can create information and then after considering other ideas, can edit their blogs to maintain relevant and up to date information. In a school setting, a relatively safe idea would be to set up a blogging community that operates between schools in a particular area, this will ensure that teachers know who the students are communicating with and can monitor student activity online.

I found this youtube video useful as it reinforced some of the integral social constructivist concepts. I thought it would be interesting to consider the various comments that the youtube users posted regarding this video. An intriguing viewpoint was the idea that constructivism is too idealistic and that the focus of teaching children how to think, instead of directly instructing them is not beneficial to the students. Personally, I do not agree with this comment. I think that teaching students how to think and how to process information is far more beneficial than directly instructing students. I remember a lot of my school learning was based upon memorisation and studying to a test, which honestly was ineffective as I studies in order to achieve a particular grade and not for the desire to learn. I can understand how people will reach negative conclusions regarding constructivism, as they are based upon their own schooling experiences and how they were instructed in the classroom. I do believe that the promotion of videos such as this one, will begin to bridge the gap in the generational understanding of constructivist theories.