using social media with no expectation of school reform

Stephen Downes points to a blog entry by Gary Stager that offers criticism of the use of Web 2.0 tools in the classroom. Gary Stager says that many teachers eagerly using and advocating these tools have no sense of the history of school reform, and certainly no grasp of the grounds for school reform.

“Like 25 years ago with Logo, some creative teachers today have become smitten with Web 2.0 technologies. They do creative things with the tools themselves and engage kids in interesting projects. They too can’t understand why colleagues do not share their enthusiasm. These early adopters are great evangelists for the technology and hope that their work will result in school reform.”

He provides a list of criticisms worthy of discussion in NZ schools/staffrooms, including “the educational Web 2.0 community has… scant knowledge of existing school reform literature… one gets the sense that proponents of Web 2.0 in education are discovering educational theories here and there and then applying these ideas to the new tools.”