21st. CENTURY EDUCATION-"TEACHERS OUT, LEARNERS IN" TEACHERS OUT LEARNERS IN BOOKLET | Page 33

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WHY SHOULD WE USE WEB 2.0 TOOLS?
 You might ask, “What’s the benefit of using Web 2.0 tools in teaching and learning?”. Because Web 2.0 tools
allow users to collaborate to generate/upload content, it is an excellent means to engage learners and help
foster a community of learning in your course. For instance, you can ask students to create a glossary by taking
turns to define concepts using their own words on a wiki page in CourseWeb. At the end of the semester, your
students would have created a glossary in a “language” they understand. Another example is using a mind
mapping tool like Popplet to help students brainstorm ideas asynchronously, meaning they do not need to
contribute ideas at the same time (synchronously). Students in a group can create a mind map on one space by
adding their own ideas or commenting on group mates’ ideas at different times without meeting each other
face-by-face. If necessary, students can even add multimedia files into their mind map to make it more
comprehensible. In the end, each group can have its mind map that is ready for sharing and feedback due to
the convenient setup by those Web 2.0 tools.