Constructing disciplinary inquiry communities through Web 2.0

This chapter explores the utility of Web 2.0 technologies for supporting independent inquiry-based learning, with a particular focus upon the use of blogs and social bookmarking tools. It begins by outlining the key issues confronting practitioners wishing to engage with such technologies before moving on to describe the approaches that were adopted in a range of first-year History seminar classes in two research-led universities in the UK. The chapter closes with an evaluation of the positive impact of the use of Web 2.0 on student learning and any drawbacks that were encountered. Web 2.0 is judged to have had a positive impact upon student engagement with course materials, encouraging student to conduct independent research outside of class and generating significant interactions between students and their peers as well as with tutors. Future avenues for research include investigations into how the use of such technologies can be scaled up for larger student groups and what impact summative assessment might have upon student engagement

Social bookmarking pedagogies in higher education: a comparative study

This paper compares two projects that adopted social bookmarking (SB) technology in different educational contexts at the same institution, a large, research-intensive university in the north of England. The first study used social bookmarking in a multicultural postgraduate class to increase interactivity within the whole class and to produce an archive of course-related online resources to engage potentially isolated students. The second study used social bookmarking to support first year undergraduate students’ independent research activities, to facilitate collaboration and to aid the tutor’s preparation for seminar classes. The paper provides an outline of the two studies, including a description of the pedagogic approaches adopted in them, developments in the pedagogy over time and evaluative and usage data that were collected. The discussion focuses on five main issues: SB literacy; SB benefits; SB costs and risks; SB pedagogy; and SB alternatives