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Studying in Web 2.0 – Virtual University as Virtual Community

Authors:
Birgit Feldmann

Keywords: group types; e-learning; Web 2.0; collaborative learning; Virtual University

Abstract:
Our experience and research on technology-supported learning and teaching have clearly confirmed the general understanding that students working collaboratively are more successful than students working alone. Therefore, it should be a logical consequence to integrate communication and collaboration as a key factor into a distance study environment. However, this is not a trivial task from various points of view. For instance, for public universities in Germany studies have to be free of charge – which then raises the question, how to finance highly interactive small classes? Another problem is the professional restrictions of working distance students: their time budget is very limited. The consequence is that students typically have very limited contact to their peers and their tutors until the final examinations. The drop-out rates have been extremely high. A lot of students study more than six years to reach a first degree. E-learning improved the situation substantially (even though poorly used by the teachers in many environments), but by far not enough. This paper shows how Web 2.0 opens up new possibilities to approach these challenges, and how it can be used to improve the situation substantially.

Pages: 140 to 145

Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2010

Publication date: November 21, 2010

Published in: conference

ISSN: 2308-3549

ISBN: 978-1-61208-105-2

Location: Lisbon, Portugal

Dates: from November 21, 2010 to November 26, 2010