Web 2.0 is widely used by children, with over 74% having at least one social networking site account and the use of email and instant messaging is almost ubiquitous. However, most of this activity takes place OUTSIDE the school – 49% blogged outside of school with only 9% blogging inside school, whilst 69% had a social networking profile, but only 8% used it  within the  school. The only real area where school use was widespread was in the use of wikipedia, where over 73% used it in school. Only 8% of learners do not use Web 2.0 tools at all, and only 24% do not use social networking sites. But the really interesting part are the analysis of what these activities mean. The report finds that despite this high level of activity, there is “little evidence of groundbreaking activities and only a few embryonic signs of criticality, self-management and metacognitive reflection”
However, the report does acknowledge that web 2.0 can be useful in several key areas in shifting the pedagogy and methodology towards a new learning paradigm. Specifically, it finds that web 2.0 stimulates new modes of enquiry, in particular engaging in collaborative learning activities and engaging with new literacies. The report makes some fascinating comparisons between traditional school based learning and the new paradigm, making the following paired comparisons:

Private learning versus collaborative learning
Creative editing versus cutting and pasting (highlighting the danger sof the quick fix of cut and paste from the internet)
Serial processing versus parallel processing (and the growth of tagging and ‘folksonomy’)
Successive attention versus simultaneous attention (multitasking)
Authorised knowledge versus distributed knowledge (the need for some form of directed guidance to the web)

It also sounds a warning note as to why the adoption of web 2.0 may have to be a slow and steady progression, rather than an overnight sensation.  The report found that

‘Most teachers interviewed saw social networking as ‘play’, and as a medium to be discouraged in school. Most young people surveyed, however, saw social networking as usefully transient and private, occupying a space safely distant from the gaze of their teachers and parents.’

emphasising the division between school life and personal life.  But it also cites the new demands web 2.0 makes on learners to adopt new modes of learning, and the products of this learning then need to be accommodated into the school curriculum – how do we assess group collaborative work for example.

The report found that Web 2.0 approaches worked best when there were flexible models of learning, with Web 2.0 approaches embedded in the curriculum, both within and across subjects, coupled with support for student learning at home. This needed to be backed up with sufficient computer infrastructure, bandwidth, and technical support, and needed support and encouragement from senior management, with sufficient resources dedicated to training and development, especially for innovators. All this had to be backed up by a clear and reasonable e-safety policy that allowed maximum access possible whilst still providing adequate levels of protection for students.

The reports conclusion notes that
‘Perhaps one key implication for practice, therefore, is for evangelists, innovators and visionaries (and policy-makers) to take careful account of just how much is being asked of teachers in encouraging the wider implementation of Web 2.0, and to recognise that relatively slow and cautious progress is inevitable. That progress may require inspiration sustained with resources that meet both the infrastructure and pedagogic challenges. But it may also require deeper consideration of the wider fabric of curricula, assessment, and established practices for designing sites of teaching and learning.’
So the  need is  to take things slowly, build out from outposts of innovation and prove the need for web 2.0, and then see the transformations emerge organically from experience. What does this mean for higher education and businesses? Well at present it seems that children are going to emerge from school with a lot of experience of web 2.0 in their personal lives, but not much concept of how to apply that to other spheres. So the responsibility of educators at that level is going to be, at least for a generation or so, to provide the guidance and mentoring to allow learners to combine their familiarity with web 2.0 with a critical sensibility of how to use it to enhance their understanding of the world. We need to help them analyse and critique their world, and do that in a collaborative way through dialogue.

A recent presentation by Chris Lehmann sums it up really well, (thanks to kevin’s blog engaged learning for this, the slideshare is at ignite philly)  he calls for us  to ‘make technology like oxygen, ubiquitous, necessary and invisible’, and then use it to help students

Research:Collaborate:Create:Present:Network

A great clarion call for all levels of education!

It takes images, video and music from the Getty archives and mashes them up into a constant stream of material, which the viewer can modify according to their mood by entering their ‘emotional state’: you can be hot or cold, excited or calm, nostalgic or contemporary. Moodstream then selects content according to your criteria and pushes content out to you accordingly. The result is a rather peculiar kind of moving audio wallpaper, a bit like high tech elevator music, and I’m not entirely sure what the point is, unless its meant to be projected in the background in your office or home. Still, its kind of fun, and an interesting insight into how media might be personally tailored in future, where you will feel like things are being done specifically for you rather than just a generic audience.

It’s pretty amazing, and makes me realise that a lot of the discussion about face to face vs web based interaction may well be redundant in a generation or less. Soon having soemone ‘live’ in the same room, even when they are actually thousands of miles away, will seem perfectly normal. What does that do to how education is delivered and experienced? See it at musion

The total stands today at 493, and the site displays data on them in a variety of ways, showing their hometown, where they are buried, marital status, high school and gender. But the viewer can dig deeper, and search the database by number of children, place of death, branch of military etc.

This to me really brings home a human side to the conflict, the apparently neutral display of numbers becomes personalised when you realise that half of the fallen were either married or engaged, and that about 170 had children, with half having 2 or more. Mix that in with the average age of the troops being 21, and you have to conclude that that’s a lot of very young children who will grow up without their fathers. The figures reveal to the demographics of the war: the majority of the dead come from small towns across the state, with big cities like San Diego and LA contributing 23 and 22 respectively. San Francisco provides only 2 of the dead. One high school, Buchanan High in Clovis, suffered 6 casualties alone. And 59 of the troops were first generation immigrants, looking for the military to further their integration to US society.
And the Marines continue their unfortunate tradition of suffering relatively high casualties respective tot heir size, with a quarter coming from their ranks, although more than half came from the army. The vast majority of the dead were killed in Iraq, where 419 fell, with 46 in the Afghan conflict illustrating the relative scale of each theatre of war.

The data for the survey comes from icasualties.org, which catalogues all of the deaths and injuries suffered by coalition forces in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Their data is staggering, every casualty recorded, with its cause and location and date.

Perusing their material, it becomes clear the California has indeed borne the brunt of the US war effort, with approximately 10% of the total dead, the highest overall total, with 3158 wounded. Texas follows in second place with 386 and 2891, far more than the next states, New York and Pennsylvania with 178/1417 and 18/1247 each.

Almost half of these were caused by IED’s (improvised explosive devices)

What does al this data do? For me, searching through it made interaction with the story an active experience, not a passive one, and the responses from families and loved ones on the LA times blog like the one below carry a powerful emotional charge that the raw data multiples 4000 times.

‘Someday, were going to wake up and find a big whole in an entire generation of our population. Our small towns, without jobs or opportunity to offer these young men and women, have borne the brunt of this war. Joshua Wayne Dickinson, a native to Yucca Valley California will always live in my heart, although he resides in heaven with his mother. At 26 Josh was killed by an IED in Falluja on December 12 2004, he left behind a father, brother, and sister and young daughter. Joshua will always be my hero.’

you are supposed to be in the US to sign up, but i just checked the box and it let me in

it is free at present, and the T&C dont seem too scary in that adobe aren’t trying to take any rights except in the provision of the service

I uploaded a set of images easily, and made a quick album of images of a story as a slideshow i did a few years ago on the threat to orangutans in indonesia from logging

you can view it here https://www.photoshop.com/user/paullowe

at first glance it seems like a high powered version of flikr, you can edit and even retouch images from inside the programme, and then make albums and slideshows that you can either share publicly or just with friends by email invites

(thanks to hao for the heads up on this)