Teachers split over web use in classrooms

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Parents and students are eager to see Web 2.0 in classrooms, but teachers aren’t so sure, according to a new survey.

Just half of teachers asked by NTL Telewest said they believe that web applications – including Facebook, YouTube and Wikipedia – have a place in education.

Just a fifth said they used Wikipedia when teaching, while five per cent said they used YouTube. And while a third believed web pages had the most value for learning, just 14 per cent used them in their classrooms.

The survey showed that about half of students aged 13 to 18 use YouTube, social networking sites and Wikipedia in their spare time, over a third believed such sites could be useful in schools.

However, less than a fifth of teachers used Wikipedia as a resource in classrooms and only five per cent used YouTube. Even general internet information sites only scored 14 per cent of teachers’ votes, despite the fact that almost a third felt the internet had added the most value to education.

Chris Ducker, a senior marketing manager at NTL Telewest Business, told IT PRO the survey was looking at whether the technology used in everyday life is reflected in learning. “Are people more advanced in their daily lives than in schools?” he asked. “Is it not the schools that need to catch up?”

Furthermore, a quarter of teachers showed concern that students put too much personal information online – though this would arguably drive many worried educators to teach students about online safety, rather than just ignore it.

“Some teachers have embraced [Web 2.0 tools]… as with any change, there is a feeling that people need to familiarise themselves and be furnished with the right tools,” Ducker said, adding that the difference in opinion between students and teachers is not just a generation gap. “It’s not an age-related thing, but a familiarity thing. Some are increasingly comfortable, some are not.”

Such communications technology could be used in quite basic and easy to integrate ways, he suggested. “An example would be the use of Wikipedia to research, or creating sites like blogs to communicate with those outside the school, or using other people’s blogs to research a different geographical area,” he said.

A poll by government tech-in-schools agency Becta earlier this year suggested the vast majority of parents want to see more IT in schools, while education minister Jim Knight this summer launched a plan to help educators keep up with the pace of technological change.

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