Title: Interactive learning projects for schools with Web 2.0 tools

Authors: Andreas Wiesner-Steiner; Heike Wiesner; Sabine Zauchner

Addresses: Hochschule für Wirtschaft und Recht Berlin, Badensche Straße 50–51, 10825 Berlin, Germany ' Hochschule für Wirtschaft und Recht Berlin, Badensche Straße 50–51, 10825 Berlin, Germany ' Donau-Universität Krems, Department für Interaktive Medien und Bildungstechnologien, Dr.-Karl-Dorrek-Straße 30, A 3500 Krems, Austria

Abstract: Web 2.0 has increasingly been adopted in education, but the varying approaches of girls and boys towards new technologies have found little consideration in pedagogical contexts. The research project 'female' is devoted to this theme: fe/male places Web 2.0 technologies in education at centre stage. These technologies are analysed under the aspect of gender and also in relationship to their didactical deployment. This is based on the assumption that Web 2.0 technologies, which comprises core ideas of the web (user-friendliness, standardisation, participation and reutilisation) will increasingly gain importance and function as the 'passage point' for technology–gender–discourses. Within the fe/male project nine Web 2.0 school projects (covering fields such as mathematics, biology, chemistry, physics and history) were implemented in schools and evaluated. The main results display that between the girls and boys who participated in the evaluations much more similarities were observable than differences. Furthermore, a tendency is observable, that girls even profit more from Web 2.0 school projects than boys who need more support than their counterparts. In addition, we have detected some significant country-specific differences with regard to self-organisation or forms of assistance. In summary, the fe/male project sheds light on important didactical and gender effects that can evolve from Web 2.0 e-learning tools.

Keywords: technology-supported learning; participatory design; interactive media; Web 2.0; social media; interactive learning; internet; world wide web; social networking; networks; interactivity; collaboration; collaborative media; girls; boys; new technologies; pedagogical factors; pedagogy; females; males; didactical deployment; user-friendliness; standardisation; participation; reutilisation; passage points; technology discourses; gender discourses; school projects; mathematics; biology; chemistry; physics; history; schools; educational evaluation; country-specific differences; self-organisation; assistance; didactical effects; gender effects; Austria; Germany; innovation; secondary education.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIIE.2011.045088

International Journal of Innovation in Education, 2011 Vol.1 No.3, pp.263 - 279

Published online: 24 Jan 2012 *

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