Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación. EDU2009-11656 (subprograma EDUC)
Project execution: 2009-2011
Principal researcher: Manoli Pifarré Turmo.
Researcher team: Jaume Sanuy, Conxita Vendrell, Anna Gené, Teresa Mora, Susana Gòdia, Noemí Verdú, Angel Solans, Esther Argelagós y Alex Guijosa.

Summary

The main aim of this project is contribute to promote the digital literacy of secondary students using Web 2.0 and Internet as a learning tool in regular secondary courses.
We live in a wired, globalize world in which the World Wide Web is one of the main action scenarios. This new world is changing constantly and the Web is changing too. It has morphed from static HTML pages where readers could find and copy information to interactive services, where visitors can create and post information. Web is now a participatory, interactive place where we create information collaboratively and share the results.

The Web evolution towards Web 2.0 reflects deep changes in social, economical and cultural organisation. These changes demand to young citizens, new cognitive demands and to develop new skills. Education should provide these new tools to our students so that they are prepared for new challenges.

The development of this set of new strategies and skills in all students, and especially those who have learning difficulties, does not occur spontaneously through the simple interaction of the student with the new technologies. It is necessary to design and to analyse specific teaching processes that develop new methods explicitly aimed at teaching these abilities.

In this line of work, our project wants to reach the next five objectives:

1. To know which tools of the Web 2.0 are already used by secondary students in family and leisure.
2. To evaluate which strategies and skills are necessary to develop in secondary students in order they could use, manage and learn using Web 2.0 as a learning tool.
3. To analyse which educational variables should be introduced in the design of instructional processes which use Web 2.0 as a learning tool.
4. To study which scaffolds students should need to use Web 2.0 as a learning tool
5. To design and implement an instructional process addressed to increase the new skills to use Web 2.0 as a learning tool.
6. To evaluate the incidence of Web 2.0 mediation in three variables: a) students’ learning results; b) students’ learning processes: cognitive and metacognitive and c) social interaction and collaborative learning among peers.
7. To design educational Web that contain the main conclusions of the research Project, learning activities using Internet and different educative Web resources to promote the use of Web 2.0 as learning tool in secondary education.