Increasingly I have begun to get a little tired of the use of the ‘Web 2.0’ catch-phrase.  It’s not that Web 2.0 tools are not great – in fact many of them are.  However, I also think that many of them are not really that useful in an educational context.  Often they expose students to unmoderated environments teeming with inappropriate advertising and dubious content.  For me, it is all about engagement.

One of the primary tasks in evaluating any Web 2.0 content should be a determination about whether the use of the tool will serve to enhance the engagement of students within the context of the course.  I currently have a student teacher who has been teaching a number of my classes and I find myself using the word ‘engagement’ an awful lot in discussions I am having with him.  Without me knowing it, it has become my ‘word’ of 2009 (at least until I change my mind)!  Watching someone else teach my classes has made me wonder how engaging the tools and delivery methods I use are?  Are forums engaging to students?  If used in the right way, with the right amount of prompting and moderation – absolutely.  As are wikis, blogs, podcasting, online collaboration and many other Web 2.0 tools.  However, the byline to last year’s conference (which struck a chord with me then and continues to), is particularly relevant.  Technology alone cannot save us.  The use of technology for technology’s sake is counterproductive.

Take Twitter for example.  Now I know that there are many of you who use Twitter and love it.  I was open to using it and have played around with it for a few months now.  However, I struggle to come up with an educational application for it – especially one that would engage students in just the sorts of ways that I would like to.  I remain to be convinced and perhaps someone out there can set me straight?  Flickr is cool but I rarely use it in class.  Google Maps and street view are also a lot of fun and have certainly fueled some good IT ethics discussions – but again I struggle to find an application for my own classes. 

I certainly welcome any nifty ideas or resources that anyone cares to move in my direction – and despite how the paragraphs above sound, I will give anything a go.  Did I mention that it is all about engagement?