Where to From Here?
By James Boscoat 7:13 pm on July 21, 2009 • Leave a comment
The Consortium of School Networking (CoSN) reports on the early phases of their project to advance the use of Web 2.0 applications in our nation’s schools.
After several months’ work on our project “Participatory Learning in Schools: Overcoming Policy and Organization Barriers, ” it is clear to us that the challenge of making significant inroads to using Web 2.0 applications to establish new learning opportunities in our schools is no less challenging that we expected it to be! As one of the key elements of our project we conducted a national survey of 1,189 superintendents, district curriculum coordinators, and technology directors. The survey revealed some surprising good news: we learned that district-level administrators generally consider Web 2.0 applications to be valuable for kids in our schools. Yet, that positive finding was offset by other findings. Fifty-seven percent of the administrators reported that Web 2.0 has caused district policy makers to be nervous about student use. Seventy percent of the administrators indicated that their schools had banned social networking.
Schools are generally struggling with what these new applications mean in terms of school policies and practices. We have heard from administrators that they just don’t know how to proceed. This explains the seeming disconnect between positive disposition toward Web 2.0 applications and actions to restrict their use. Given uncertainty as well as horror stories reported in the media, it is both understandable and unfortunate that many administrators feel the safest and best course of action is to ban Web 2.0 in the schools.
It was valuable to learn that superintendents and curriculum directors had equally positive opinions at the “philosophic” level, as did technology directors about Web 2.0 for schools. Knowing this means we can concentrate on providing information and resources that respond directly to the specific policy and organizational issues that we have identified. In effect, it will be less necessary to spend time and energy on the “should” question and more on the “how to” issues and problems.
The national survey, as well as many other less formal conversations, meetings, and reviews of documents, has been very valuable in informing our thinking about strategy and tactics as we move forward to implement an action agenda. We certainly do not kid ourselves about the task at hand, but the job just has to get done. It would be a sad state of affairs indeed if our kids could make use of the tremendous digital learning opportunities that are available not because of but despite what happens in our schools. Yet we are optimistic. We know it can happen because there are some great examples of school districts that are making great use of Web 2.0 applications. We have also seen lots of receptivity among administrators to information and resources that can help them revitalize learning and even transform schools with these participatory and collaborative tools.
The URL for the CoSN Web 2.0 initiative is http://www.cosn.org/web20/ A link to our national survey can be found on our home page.
This project is an initiative of the Consortium of School Networking (CoSN), a professional association for school district technology leaders. With support from the MacArthur Foundation, CoSN aims to identify the organizational and policy barriers that impede the adoption of new media in schools and develop recommendations of how to overcome them. For more on the project go here.
Next: Conference to Explore Media's Role in Tween Education > >
< < Previous: Second Life Simulcast on Wiki Government
Save or share this post
Tags
Tags:
Comments (0)
No comments yet.
Robust discussion/debate is encouraged. Comments are reviewed before posting to ensure they are on topic and do not promote commercial products or services.
Add a Comment