I came across a CNN article titled “Web 2.0-savvy teachers testing old assumptions“. Ah, I thought, something that might finally inform the layman about the impact that Web 2.0 was having on mainstream education. But this was true to a limited extent.

The new practices included relying less on the lecture-based approach when podcasting, promoting online collaboration, taking advantage of what technology and skills students already used or had, encouraging digital literacies, etc. The article also offered a few interesting links, like the one to Hyperwords which was an article on augmented reality.

Unfortunately, the article simply degenerated to a list of Web 2.0 tools that some innovative teachers had started using. The most important piece of information that was missing was just how teaching had improved as a result of, or in conjunction with, the use of these tools.

The tool is only as good as the strategy. If teacher use these tools simply to fulfil a “technology requirement” or to inject pointless fun into their teaching, then I think that they do more harm than good. But if they mediate the use of these tools with powerful pedagogies (like the ones mentioned in the early part of the article), they might actually transform teaching and truly engage their learners!