Web 2.0 and web literacy skills in the EVO 06 co-blogworkshop
Last year I was active in the EVO blog workshop as a participant. I'm an old webhead with several years of hands-on practice in blogging - and this year, I'm part of the Electronic Village moderators. Jane Petring, Anna Koorey and I are now collaborating in a moderator team for about 150 collaborative edubloggers - from about 50 countries.
A large group are whose who already have joined Webheads In Action (or a similar online community for language eductors). We have a survey where 60 workshop participant respondents so far have given us a picture of this international and exciting group. Although it is not yet closed and we have not started to nake statistics, it appears to me that blogs no longer need to be justified or demystified. It also strikes me that nobody has asked for help with digital images - and that the Frappr map does not need much explanation either.
I'm wondering if this is already a sort of result of the Web 2.0 underground or grassroot movement of fast distribution of new knowledge and skills in the digital era. I am meeting more and more people, mostly school and university teachers with no specific or very little educational training in these matters, apparently now dealing with digital challenges as something they want to learn more about, with a drive for coming back for more and seeking informal channels for this learning by doing in collaboration with peers . Our resistance to learning has been challenged and succesful moments with tools that work, such as the instant gratification of blogging, has made computing in general less intimidating and more accesible in an everyday context than it used to be just a few years from now. And before you can try these things in the classroom every teacher should seek to become a legitimate and active participant in a learning community of online practise - such as the Electronic Village Online.