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pbach - November 6th, 2008 at 8:59 am

15 January, 2016 - 09:36
Available under Creative Commons-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Download for free at http://cnx.org/contents/f6522dce-7e2b-47ac-8c82-8e2b72973784@7.2

No doubt the post makes insightful claims. My first concern is that overtaxed professors, especially ones on tenure-track, may not have time to rethink the old school ways of interacting with students and designing their courses. If change is on the horizon, it's going to be a slow one. In a college where both students and professors are skilled in web 2.0 tech, integrating new web media into their curriculum is easier because technology is part of the program. But in other faculties, take English, for example, both students and professors may not be as technically literate. Yet, although students may be comfortable using social networking sites and youtube, senior professors are probably not. Also, junior professors, even if they are versed in web 2.0 technologies, may not be recognized by the department for bringing new media into the curriculum. Junior professors spend their time on things that will get them tenure and if rethinking a course using new media does not reward them for tenure, at least somewhere along the line, then they are less likely to do it. However, I could see integrating new learning through web 2.0 reflecting back positively on teaching evaluations, and that would count for tenure.

    What I like about the possibilities of web 2.0 and new media is the ability for students to go find things that interest them and synthesize their learning through creativity.