Constructivist Learning Theory As Seen Through Web 2.

0 Applications Stefanie Welty EDTECH 504 4173 Boise State University April 27, 2010

Abstract

It has been said that the jobs that our students will have in ten years, have ye t to be created. Because of this ever-changing job market, employers are lookin g for a new kind of employee. 21st century learning skills, which include creat ivity, the ability to collaborate with others, and the ability to utilize higher order thinking skills are a must to get ahead in the modern knowledge age. Con structivist learning theory that has been influenced by psychologists like Piage t and Vygotsky, is a valuable theory in helping K-12 educators prepare students for the real world. Educators can incorporate constructivist style hands-on activ ities into the curriculum to help foster 21st century learning among todays millen ials. Collaborative and interactive Web 2.0 tools like blogs, social networking sites, and wikis ease the process of changing a classroom from teacher-centered to learner-centered. This paper examines the roots of constructivist learning t heory and how modern Web 2.0 technologies that are used outside of school on a d aily basis, can effectively be integrated into a classroom environment. Todays K-12 educators are constantly reminded that their job is far different, and some may say even more difficult, than the job that teachers ten years ago had to do. Although there are students who can still benefit from a traditional lecture style classroom, the majority of todays students learn best w hen they are actively participating in the learning process, thus creating their own meaning. These digital natives have grown up with not only constant access to the newest technologies, but also the opportunity to contribute and interact with many of these technologies on the web. The collaboration and active parti cipation that comes with new technologies has taught our students to expect thei r classroom environment will offer those same opportunities. The willingness to embrace this style of learning is sometimes difficult for teachers who are neith er digital natives nor have ever been a student in a constructivist classroom. Allowing students to take ownership for their learning can help hesitant teacher s incorporate constructivist learning activities into their classroom, especiall y by using Web 2.0 technologies that help build the 21st century learning skills todays employers are looking for. Before jumping to the conclusion that creating a 21st century clas sroom is impossible, its important for teachers to understand not only what the c onstructivist learning theory is, but also why constructivist centered lessons a re valuable in the classroom. Jerome Bruner is often credited with establishing the main beliefs of constructivism. Notions about learning that state it is a p rocess of interacting between the known and unknown, it is a social process, a s ituated process, and also a metacognitive process, set the foundation for constr

uctivist learning (Pritchard, 2009). According to Jonassen (1991), constructivis m is the belief that individuals construct their own reality based on their phys ical and social experiences. Since no two people experience the same event in t he exact same way, it stands to reason that reality means something different fo r every person and that reality is what the individual makes it. In order for i ndividuals to construct their own reality, learners need to be presented with au thentic tasks that provide the opportunity to construct, not reproduce, knowledg e, collaborate with others, and reflect on the experience. Other characteristics from the early work of psychologist Piaget, like t he notion of assimilation and accommodation, can be found in todays constructivis t theory. Piaget describes assimilation as the process of a learner incorporatin g new information into his or her knowledge bank and accommodation as the proces s of altering what he or she already knows because of a new experience that cont radicts what is already known (Pritchard, 2009). Many years before educators be came concerned with planning constructivist lessons, Piaget said that learners a dd to and create their own knowledge based on their experiences. Co-constructivism, also known as social constructivism, is the typ e of constructivism that can be most valuable in a K-12 classroom. Social const ructivism, based on the work of Vygotsky, looks at how culture and social contex t influence learning (Kanuka, 1999). According to Kanuka, Vygotsky said that kn owledge is constructed in the environment in which its encountered and that knowl edge construction happens through a social and collaborative process. Vygotskys concept of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) is something most teachers are aware of and address in their classroom, but perhaps without realizing they are doing so by using social constructivist principles. According to Pritchard (20 09), the zone of proximal development is the theoretical space of understanding t hat is just above the level of understanding of a given individual. A learner ca n work effectively within the ZPD, but only if he or she has the correct support . Helping the learner understand the information through discussion with others or through a collaborative activity with classmates is an example of how constru ctivist techniques can be valuable in the classroom. Using constructivist activities in the classroom can help equip our mille nnial learners with the 21st century skills they will need for the jobs of the fu ture that have yet to be created. According to Mahmud Shihab (2008) from the In ternational College in Beirut, Lebanon, in a presentation given at the National Educational Computing Conference (NECC), the job of a teacher is to prepare his or her students to function in digital world. There is more to education than j ust reading, writing, and arithmetic. Learners now need to leave high school be ing digitally literate, they need to use inventive thinking, possess effective c ommunication skills, and be able to maintain high productivity. This training alone makes teaching today more difficult than teaching te n years ago. Teachers today are charged with the task of preparing students for the unknown. No longer can teachers rely on the tried and true methods of teac hing from one textbook in the order things appear and expect to have effectively prepared their students for the real-world. Teachers now have to constantly rein vent the curriculum so they can best prepare students for numerous scenarios tha t dont even exist yet. The best way to do this is through constructivist lessons , giving students the opportunity to complete hands-on activities, and putting t hese activities in a format that students are familiar with, Web 2.0. Web 2.0 is the term used to describe the new type of Internet that todays students have grown up with. Gone are the days when the Internet was available only to conduct a passive search for information. Gone are the days when infor mation was uploaded to the web through a complicated coding process that only fe w people understood. The creation of What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) soft ware has transformed the Internet into a place for collaboration between all peo

ple, not just the chosen few (Heafner & Friedman, 2008). Greenhow, Robella, and Hughes (2009) describe this second generation of Internet in their article Learn ing, Teaching, and Scholarship in a Digital Age, as a place for students to colla borate, be creative, and work interactively with others. Web 2.0 and WYSIWYG so ftware allow any person, not just computer programmers, to actively create and i nteract with webpages, blogs, video and image sharing, and social networking sit es all while having the opportunity to interact with people from around the worl d. While this new interactive Internet is fun to use at home, it easily transfe rs to classroom uses that benefit the learners. The key to using new Web 2.0 technologies successfully in the clas sroom is to make sure that each tool is relevant to the learner and tied into a theory that supports the tools instructional value. Focusing on several key aspe cts of constructivist theory like interaction, collaboration, reflection, and ow nership, make it simple to incorporate tools like blogs, social networking sites , and wikis into a K-12 classroom. Blogs, or weblogs, may seem like just a modern way of having stude nts keep a journal, which in some sense is true. Warschauer and Grimes (2007) s tate that blogs are indeed a modern form a keeping a diary online and they appea r in reverse chronological order. The technical difference between blogs of the Web 1.0 days and blogs of the Web 2.0 days is that software has made blogging a ccessible to people all over the world, not just those who know coding language. Not only can an individual post text, but he or she can also link pictures, vi deo, other websites, etc. to the blog. That aspect allows for interconnectivity between the individuals blog and other information that is out there on the Inte rnet. While blogs can of course be used as personal journals for sharing thoughts and feelings, this is not the most constructivist way of using the too l in the classroom. Sharing thoughts and feelings in the form of a reflection i s the first step in using a blog for academic purposes. A blog is a way of havi ng students reflect upon their academic lives. Students can post a reflection b ased upon something going on in class, but the difference between this kind of r eflection and that in a book is that the blog has an audience of more than just the teacher. Warschauer (2007) points out that bloggers need to be cognizant of their audience when posting. Because blogs are available on the Internet, anyon e can stumble across the posting, subscribe to it, or respond to it. This new pi ece of writing for a real audience causes students to spend more time composing th oughtful and meaningful posts. Along with having an audience to write for, blogging offers a plac e for individuals to collaborate on a different level than the usual face-to-fac e discussions held in the physical walls of the classroom. That same audience th at is reading the posts and reflections which could be teachers, classmates, or anyone else around the world who stumbles across the blog, has the opportunity t o comment on and begin a dialogue with the author. This is a new connection tha t occurs between the author and audience, a connection that did not exist with W eb 1.0 (Warschauer & Grimes, 2007). Individuals from around the world can comme nt on a students blog and spark a new and exciting conversation or debate. Teach ers can connect with other classrooms from across the country and have students reflect and comment on one anothers blogs to encourage students to think about th eir writing and thinking in new ways. Connecting with a person from a different part of the world in a meaningful discussion builds off of that reflection piec e and creates a strong sense of community (Seitzinger, 2006). Finally, blogging offers opportunities for students to not only be their own author writing for an audience of the world, but to also scour the In ternet to become a part of communities that have meaning to them. Many organiza tions like Daily Kos, an active political group, keep up-to-date blogs as a plac

e to house discussion relating to their organization (Warschauer & Grimes, 2007) . These kinds of blogs give opportunities to numerous editors to publish their stories, which then gives hundreds of others the chance to post comments and lin ks to those stories, creating discussion. Personal blogging, and especially joi ning an already established blogging community, forces students to utilize highe r order cognitive skills by reading, really thinking about what is being said on the post, forming an opinion, and then carefully responding with their own opin ion (Seitzinger, 2006). This process helps bring the root of constructivist lea rning activities into the classroom. Another Web 2.0 application that may appear to have no educational relev ance at first glance is the use of social networking sites. If nothing else, soc ial networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, and Delicious enco urage students to become active members of the Web 2.0 community (Heafner & Frie dman, 2008). Of course users can choose to sit back and passively browse throug h the information, pictures, videos, and links others have posted, but these sit es give learners the chance to engage in the information and sources others are putting on the web for their benefit. And whats more is that learners have the c hance to share information, videos, and links in return, even if they have never met the members of these communities. Social networking sites encourage students to interact and collaborate i n a new way. Interacting with others on video, image, or link sharing sites is different from the normal face-to-face or even commenting interaction we are use d to with blogs or even wikis. Sites like YouTube encourage a form of interacti on that involves a simplistic means of posting, locating, viewing, responding to , and ranking videos (Warschauer & Grimes, 2007). This new process of interacti on allows for communication and collaboration to occur among many instead of bet ween two individuals. Like other Web 2.0 tools, social networking sites encourage more constru ctivist principles than just collaboration. A unique feature of image sharing s ites like Flickr or social bookmarking sites like Delicious is the ability to ta g and rank the information found on these sites. The simple process of giving n ames, or tags, to images and bookmarks creates a connection among these pieces o f information that did not previously exist. The computer is then able to use t hose tags to sift through the millions of pieces of information that appear when a person half way around the world searches a particular term, thus connecting the author of the image or bookmark with the individual that conducted the searc h (Warschauer & Grimes, 2007). The tagging and searching process changes the wa y we communicate, but at the same time it allows learners to take learning into their own hands and explore all of the possibilities that exist on the web, a ve ry constructivist way of learning. A third technology tool that helps address the needs of the learne r and create a learner-centered and at the same time community-centered experien ce is a wiki. Wikis are a way to utilize WYSIWYG web design software that encour ages students to easily collaborate in the process of creating and editing a web site (Heafner & Friedman, 2008). Wikis are especially useful in the educational setting because they encourage the constructivist principles of collaboration, h igher-level cognitive thinking, and authenticity (Seitzinger, 2006). When teachers incorporate constructivist activities and allow students t o build their own understanding of a concept or topic, wikis can be used as a wa y for students to demonstrate their understanding of that new topic. Although t his may sound similar to a blog reflection posting, wikis serve a different purp ose. Rather than just posting reflections and holding discussions, wikis are we bpages where students can show what they have learned, particularly when discove ring new information on their own (Heafner & Friedman, 2008). Once students hav e carefully planned out and included meaningful information on the wiki, others

have the opportunity to collaborate by editing and contributing to the informati on. Students additionally have the ability to initiate questions, answer peer q uestions, and engage in a dialogue with the teacher in a different way from blog postings and comments (Heafner & Friedman, 2008). The most well known wiki, Wikipedia, is a great example of the many bene fits as well as drawbacks of this type of collaborative tool. While wikis posse ss the potential for students to learn from people all over the world who have t he ability to edit content that expands on what they already know, the ability t o edit content also creates a great deal of controversy (Warschauer & Grimes, 20 07). Wikiipedia has given people all over the world the chance to become a part of a community of learners. It has given users a place to be creative and eval uate content that is shared with other learners (McLoughlin & Lee, 2007), which in turn has created a community where those working together provides a better s ervice than the work of one sole individual. However, that ability to edit stir s up a lot of controversy. According to Seitzinger (2006), most teachers who are hesitant about introducing wikis into the classroom feel that way because anyone can edit the information. Because editing others work and contributing new ideas is a key f actor of collaboration and constructivist learning, Seitzinger (2006) offers sug gestions for overcoming those fears. The easiest and most logical way to protec t the work of students is to do two things. The first is to host the wiki in a protected server space. Many wiki hosts offer special accounts for educators t hat are private and for the use of the students and teachers within the communit y the teacher establishes. This would protect students from having strangers ar ound the world edit their work as can be done on Wikipedia. Another way of deal ing with anyone editing content is to stress to students proper etiquette when c ollaborating on the Internet. Making students understand the meaning of a commu nity-centered learning experience will help them to understand that although the purpose of a wiki is collaboration and learning from one another, it is conside red poor etiquette to change something without the consent of the author or grou p (Seitzinger, 2006). These few suggestions can help breed a constructive, coll aborative, and meaningful learning experience for all involved in using wikis in the classroom. Educators in todays 21st century classrooms are dealing with a very diffe rent kind of learner than the teacher ten years ago met with on a daily basis. The millenials in todays K-12 schools have grown up with interactive and collabor ative technology in their hands 24 hours a day since they were born. These stud ents expect to be given the opportunity to utilize the technology skills and too ls in school that they work with on a daily basis outside of school. When given the chance to explore content and curriculum by using Web 2.0 applications like blogs, social networking tools, and wikis in the classroom, the needs of the le arner are met by participating in a learner-centered and engaging classroom that emphasizes higher-level thinking skills. These constructivist activities are a valuable way to effectively meet the needs of todays learners.

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