The School 2.0 lens

I’ve been re-visiting what all of the gurus in the blogosphere have to say about School 2.0 preparing for my upcoming presentation at the 2007 Alabama Educational Technology Conference (AETC). The problem that I’m having is that the concept [school 2.0] is still an emerging concept. Within a school, when all of our classrooms reach the status of Classroom 2.0 through teaching 2.0 our schools will have arrived as 2.0 schools. However, it isn’t about the school or the classroom per se. It’s about applying Web 2.0 technologies to the educational process to empower and energize our students. It’s about using available teaching methods to promote learning. Web 2.0 tools are the catalyst of School 2.0 and 2.0 learning.

School 2.0 is simply a frame or a way of re-framing the way we do business as educators. It’s a new lens. School 2.0 is a lens to look through to see what we are doing and what we should be doing in the field of education with Web 2.0 tools. John Seely-Brown in an interview with Steve Hargadon emphasis that the Cartesian way of thinking "I think therefore I am" should be a thing of the past. Instead, we should be looking through the lens and be thinking “we participate therefore we are." This puts a twist on the way most individuals view schools and learning.

With school 2.0 we aren’t moving away from learning, we are learning to learn differently via new technologies. I was listening to Silvia aka langwitches podcast from the 2006 k12online conference again and she points out numerous ways to use iPods and podcasting in the classroom. Silvia is using the School 2.0 lens and showing others how to frame and facilitate the educational process with one of the many Web 2.0 tools that’s available for educators. As such, the whole School 2.0 concept should change the way students participate in and beyond the classroom.

There’s always hope!

William Bishop (Bill)

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