Web 2.0 for Schools: Learning and Social Participation(33 New Literacies and Digital Epistemologies)

In the last five years, Web 2.0 applications – vast virtual worlds, multiplayer online games, social networking, and file sharing among them – have inspired new notions of what it might mean to be literate in the twenty-first century. While previous scholarship on Web 2.0 has focused on its social and recreational uses, this book explores its ability to enrich and transform the educational experience of children and young people. It discusses the opportunities and risks presented by this large-scale shift in popular engagement with new media, and uses illustrative vignettes to document the work of innovative educators who construct new ways of thinking and being around Web 2.0.

About the Author :
The Authors: Julia Davies is based at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom where she directs an online Masters program in new literacies; she has a Masters in educational research, and an Ed.D. in literacy and language. Her research focuses on online digital practices and social learning. Her numerous article and chapter publications include «Pay and Display: The Digital Literacies of Online Shoppers» in Digital Literacies: Concepts, Policies and Practices, edited by Colin Lankshear and Michele Knobel (Lang, 2008).
Guy Merchant is Professor of Literacy in Education at Sheffield Hallam University, where he coordinates the work of the Language and Literacy Research Group. He has published numerous articles and book chapters on digital literacy and is co-editor of the Journal of Early Childhood Literacy. His research focuses on children and young people’s uses of on-screen writing and how this can be incorporated into the school curriculum.

Review :
"Blogs, Flickr, wikis, Second Life, memes - no stone is unturned in Julia Davies and Guy Merchant's roadmap to Web 2.0. From their clear and insightful look at digital epistemologies to the implications of new habits of mind for educational practice, Davies and Merchant have crafted a book that must sit on the bookshelf of every school and university faced with the challenge of twenty-first century literacies. Building on their own and other research and writing, Davies and Merchant provide us with a textured picture of how virtual worlds make us think and act." (Jennifer Rowsell, Rutgers Graduate School of Education) "[...] the emergence of digital technologies and forms of online engagement that privilege interaction over information, collectively referred to under the heading of Web 2.0, raises important questions for theory and practice, and the ways in which schools and teachers might respond. This wonderful book draws on the authors' own research and that of others, providing insightful accounts of forms ranging from Flickr to Youtube to Wikis. It considers the nature of these forms, the literacies they entail, and the kinds of engagement they engender, and describes ways in which they have been incorporated into classroom curriculum and pedagogy. The book is clear-sighted, wise, and practical, and is built on a rich and generous vision of young people, classrooms, and new literacies. It provides an invaluable resource for teaching and research and will be widely welcomed." (Catherine Beavis, Professor of Education, Griffith University)