Weeks 21 & 22 - Implications & future trends of the web - Activities 1 & 2

Here are my thought's from the tasks in Weeks 21 & 22 :-

In reading ' Stepping over the edge: the implications of new technologies for education’ by Conole - I found that it visited many of the debates surrounding VLE's and Web 2.0 and how in reality Web 2.0 has almost made VLA's redudant, and this in many cases redues the burden on providers of learner as they no longer has to provide the platform for learning.

I would agree the big change to the Web for Web 2.0 is the fact that you no longer need to be HTML programmer (all those hours learning code wasted now....) this allows the web to be more accessable by a much wider auidence. This has also come alogn with a much wider and easier access to the internet for most people in the Western World with some form of internet access almost being assumed.

Changes for schools are the ability for teachers and pupils to interact online and share resources. This has also changed the role of the teacher who was once seen as the holder knowledge, which now can be found online. They now have the role (which they always did have, just some didn't do it...) of using the knowledge and empowering learners so they know what to do with it and how make best use of it.

My PLE

Researching	Google	Websites
	OU Library	Online library available to OU students
	Wikipedia	A starting point for online research
	Twitter	A way of keeping up to daye with researchers, which also provides ideas on others ares which I may not have previously found. Plus personal use for following family, friends and motorsport.
Communication	Skype	Remotley attending meetings
	Elluminate	Communicate with OU tutor &  other fellow students
Peer networking	Facebook	Keeping up to date with family and friends
	Forums	Motorsport forums, with often leads to informal and formal learning
Leisure	Blogs	Informal learning
	Websites	Informal learning
	You Tube
Blog	Blogger	This blog and my personal one at http://www.mattendean.co.uk/

I feel that PLE's have now been over taken by Web 2.0 and the fact that these tools are now often part of peoples everyday lives it makes sense to use these tools as part of the learning experience, rather forcing students to learn new platforms and tools espcially as the take up of forums and other tools can prove to be tricky for such courses. So anything that can make it easier to interact should be seen as a good thing, although there could be some interestign issues re IRM when using sites liek Facebook and others who often seen contact that is hosted by them as being owned by them..... something to ponder on.....