Context

Community Context

I will be conducting my research at Island Pacific School (IPS), an independent, co-educational, non denominational middle school on Bowen Island, B.C. In the 2008-2009 school year, 50 students were enrolled in grades six through nine. About 80% of these students live on Bowen Island; the balance commute from the mainland. While in the past these percentages have varied considerably—the percentage of students from the mainland has been as low as 0% and as high as 40%—we expect the numbers to remain relatively stable at 15% to 25% over the next five years. Almost all the students come from white, middle class families although for each of the past three years we have also had at least two Korean ESL students attending as home-stay students.

I have been working there since 2001 and am currently the assistant head of school. I also teach English and philosophy to all four grades.

As a small, independent school, IPS enjoys a great deal of flexibility in developing and delivering curriculum. Classes are small and range from eight to 15 students. The instructional staff of six full- and part-time teachers is organized in a flat structure that encourages collaboration and affords a great deal of autonomy for individual teachers. The school also enjoys the close support and direct involvement from many of the student’s parents.

IPS was founded in 1995 by Dr. Ted Spear and offers a revitalized liberal education to young adolescents. Part of that education has included courses for all students in practical reasoning and elementary philosophy. A year of experimenting at Island Pacific School with emerging web 2.0 technologies such as blogs, microblogs, wikis, podcasts, collaboration suites and instant messaging, indicates that it may be possible to use these technologies to augment this more or less traditional teaching to develop “the language of critique and possibility.” (Smith) These web 2.0 technologies allow students and teachers easily to capture or record conversations, even those spread out over time and great distances--something they could not do before, not practically anyway. This, in turn, allows students and teachers new opportunities to engage in reflective discourse about the content of their study, but also—more importantly—about the conversations themselves.

Literature Review

Current literature on using web 2.0 in K12 classrooms, including formal publications and informal discussions on blogs and Twitter, divides into several strands:

How To’s. Emerging web 2.0 technologies have generated tremendous excitement in K12 education. Most of the informal discussions are about ways to use various technologies for day-to-day classroom activities. These typically take the form of samples of student work accompanied by a teacher’s explanation of how the works were created. They focus on the mechanics of assembling a piece of web content, a video or podcast, for example. There is little or no discussion of why the particular format—video, wiki, podcast etc.—was chosen or what outcomes the teacher measured. In many cases, it appears the format was chosen simply in order to teach students a technique. There are countless wikis, blogs and Twitter conversations on this subject, but the Flat Classroom Project wiki and David Warlick’s 2¢ Worth are typical.

Skill Development. The literature here suggests that the new web 2.0 calls for new literacies—skills in searching, evaluating and exploiting web-based resources that a.) are necessary for success in school and, more importantly b.) necessary to be an informed citizen and active participant in a modern democracy. The work of the Metiri Group and the American National Council of Teachers of English are examples.

The Effects of Web 2.0 on the Way Students Learn. These discussions examine the phenomenon of socially constructed knowledge and the ways it challenges the traditional (Western) model of education. Seely Brown speaks on this.

The Effects of Web 2.0 on the Structure of Schools. These discussions examine a movement, sometimes called Opening Up Education (OUE), working to develop open educational resources (OER). Proponents argue that access to educational resources ought to be freely available to all. They work to develop sophisticated, authoritative content—equivalent to a university chemistry text, for example—and deliver it through the web. Most of the work here is done for higher education, but it has applications and implications for K12. There is a parallel discussion here of the way students might access these resources through their so-called personal learning networks (PLNs). In a traditional school, educational resources are concentrated in the school building and teachers effectively control access to them. In the web 2.0 model, resources are dispersed and students have direct access to them though the web. In this model the role of the teacher changes from gatekeeper to curator. The students’ families also become more involved in education as the web is not bound by the brick-and-mortar or even the timetable of schools. Seely Brown also addresses this issue as do many blogs. The Journal, EdTechLive and EDUCAUSE are examples.

Sociology. This is the body of literature on the nature of conversation itself. It examines how humans communicate and convey meaning. Habermas, Gadamer, Wardhaugh and Wooffitt are examples.

This literature suggests that (Western) education is undergoing significant change. Much of the literature I’ve reviewed, however, takes a passive stance: the change is happening to us and we need to adapt to it. To a certain extent, this is true. It’s absolutely necessary to teach K12 students about, privacy, community, the public sphere, and finding and verifying knowledge in their online contexts. To a certain extent, this passivity is unavoidable; the technologies are so new and continue to evolve so quickly that it’s hard to know yet just what exactly can be done with them. But I want to know if teachers can be more active and harness web 2.0 to enhance the teaching of a specific pre-determined goal.