Web 2.0 and the Classroom

Five questions with Dr. Chris Dede, Timothy E. Wirth Professor in Learning Technologies at Harvard University and the keynote speaker for this month's LITRE Expo 2009. For more details on the Expo, go to http://litre.ncsu.edu/EXPO.html.

What are the major higher education trends in using technology to help students learn, and how effective are they?

The EDUCAUSE Annual ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology documents both how faculty are using information technology to teach and what media students use – in and out of classrooms – to learn. The major disconnect is that faculty usage centers on presentational technologies to automate current forms of instruction, while student usage is focused on innovatively co-creating and sharing knowledge using Web 2.0 media. This disconnect is the reason that even faculty who use technology routinely in their courses may be seen by students as out of touch with how media aid learning.

Can you speak to the idea of "digital natives vs. digital immigrants" that suggests that students who know how to run digital information-gathering devices are assumed to be information fluent? We know that professors sometimes have to catch up on technology skills and awareness that are second nature to students, but what is the important balance to understand in this regard?

The media used by youth shape their learning strengths and preferences, but adult learning styles are also shaped by the media they use. Fluency in digital media is not generational, but is a suite of skills anyone at any age can acquire by frequent usage and by interactions with others who are experts in a particular medium. Fluency skills include not only technical dexterity with media, but understanding their strengths and limits, as well as effectively using their particular rhetorics to communicate with others.

What do educators specifically need to do to engage students in a 24/7 world of information-seeking and gathering?

Students typically are already engaged in a 24/7 world of information-seeking and gathering. Moreover, they are often engaged in virtual communities for creating and sharing knowledge. However, the information and knowledge with which they interact is generally not related to their academic material. The challenge for educators is to engage students' considerable media skills in activities that are related to academic fields and disciplines and that make learning academic content and skills interesting and relevant.

Are you seeing colleges and high schools using technology just for the sake of using technology, and not with any specific outcomes in mind? Are there any benefits without a well-defined set of outcomes?

I frequently see higher educators using technology as if it were a goal in itself, rather than a means to student engagement and learning. Instructional technology is not like fire: Fire is a wonderful technology because you get a benefit just by being near it, but academic use of technology does not automatically cause knowledge and learning to radiate out into students' minds. The power in learning technologies is in supporting deeper content mastered through more powerful pedagogies than teaching by telling and learning by listening.

Has there been enough data collected to support the use of certain educational technologies over others?

The issue is not using any particular technology, but beginning with an educational outcome for which particular pedagogies and content are required for deep mastery. In turn, one selects a technology that supports those pedagogies and that content. Typically, the most important aspect of this process is moving to an active form of learning: guided learning by doing, collaborative learning, apprenticeships and mentoring.