Spotlight on Digital Media And Learning

5.1.09 | View the SLIDESHOW here

MacArthur grantee the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) today released Leadership for Web 2.0 in Education: Promise and Reality, based on a national survey of 2,100 school district superintendents, curriculum directors and technology officers.

The study finds that although school leaders believe that Web 2.0 applications expand the resources for classroom learning, they are constrained in using them in the classroom. 

“If U.S. students are to be the next inventors, entrepreneurs and leaders in the global economy, we must see to it that our young people have the innovative tools they need to be successful in the 21st century, particularly in the classroom,” said James Bosco, principal investigator and co-chair of CoSN’s International Advisory Council.

Key findings include:

• The nation’s district administrators are overwhelmingly positive about the impact of Web 2.0 on students’ lives and their education.
•   The majority of district administrators believe that student use of Web 2.0 should be limited to participation on approved educational Web sites.
•   The majority of school districts ban social networking and chat rooms while allowing prescribed educational use for most of the other Web 2.0 tools.
•   While curriculum directors report low levels of general use of Web 2.0, they describe significant opportunities in curricula and teaching materials.
•   The use of these tools in American classrooms remains the province of individual pioneering classrooms.

Web 2.0 is defined as an online application that uses the World Wide Web as a platform and allows for participatory involvement, collaboration, and interactions among users. Web 2.0 is also characterized by the creation and sharing of intellectual and social resources by end users.

CoSN is the premier professional association for district technology leaders. The mission of CoSN is to empower K-12 district technology leaders to use technology strategically for the improvement of teaching and learning. CoSN provides leadership, community and advocacy essential for the success of these leaders.