Challenges of ‘Students as Producers’ in Web 2.0: a reflective account

Abstract

In reaction to recent calls for Higher Education institutions to invite students to shape and manage their own educational experiences (McLoughlin & Lee, 2007, 2008), increasing numbers of initiatives are engaging students as partners and co-producers of curriculum content. Positioning students as co-producers has great potential to enable them to innovate, share and form communities of interest and networks (Boyd, 2007). Despite enthusiasm for the use of participatory pedagogies, there is little research to show that educational practice is undergoing transformational changes due to these emerging trends (Crook et al., 2008). This article draws on qualitative interviewing to explore the experiences of students involved in Pedagogy 2.0 at a UK university. This was in the form of students creating multimedia content to be shared with peers. Findings suggest that alongside the pedagogical and technological components to be considered, additional monitoring of student attitude and motivation to use Web 2.0 tools for educational purposes is required. The paper also provides suggestions that may help teachers who plan to use similar pedagogies in their classroom.

Keywords

• Pedagogy 2.0
• Web 2.0 tools
• participatory pedagogies
• student-as-producer