Many educators who wish to use Web 2.0 applications in their teaching are concerned that, compared to an enterprise-level learning management system, these online apps are either unreliable or won’t ‘scale’ to accommodate the number of students they will have involved.
Will keep working?
Reliability can be considered via two main questions. First, will an application work consistently and as needed for the weeks or months that it is needed during a semester? Second, will the application continue to be offered, in a reasonably consistent way, over several semesters so that teaching won’t require a whole new approach every few months, using a different application?
It is highly likely that applications will be reliable over the shorter time-frame; however, it is somewhat less likely that applications will go on for the foreseeable future (though, of course, many do). The trick is to stay conscious of the limitations of Web 2.0, as well as its advantages. The limitation is that it is a ‘developmental’ arena, in which people try out new ideas and code, not necessarily with a clear intention of making a fully functioning, long-lasting application. Yet, because of that, there are always new opportunities and simple tools to use.
As a side point, one reason to select and use simple tools is that the amount of time invested in learning them is low enough that it matters less if they change or have to be replaced by an alternative. Equally, by setting tasks that focus on what the students create inside an application (rather than what you lovingly craft), you invest less into a system which might, as an outside possibility, not exist for very long.
Realistically, the newer an application is, the more likely it is to work in the short-term (while the service is established) but the less likely it is to be available for several years (since the owners / developers may lose interest or significantly alter its terms of service). Older applications are much less likely to change over time and can offer a safer bet for long-term investment. Read the ‘about’ section of any application you might use to decide what its likely development cycle will be
A further aspect to reliability can be considered: will the data or other material in the system be saved and restorable should something go wrong? When choosing and using tools, it is important to look at the controls one has as a user over exporting, storing or otherwise safeguarding information.
Finally, always make sure you have a backup plan and ensure students know what to do if something goes awry. Plan ahead – it’s an insurance policy you probably will never need.
Enterprise systems also change; universities institute new approaches; and content is often updated regularly in any case. Web 2.0 is not significantly different in this respect – except you have more control over what you use and why
When are there too many students?
While many Web 2.0 applications work brilliantly because they enable many people to access, contribute to and create content as part of a loosely-organised collective (for example, xtimeline), others are much less forgiving of large numbers of users all working at the same time, on the same project. Some are, in fact, specifically designed for much smaller numbers (for example reviewbasics).
Successful management of scale can usually be implemented by thinking about the kind of work being done. If the tasks the students are set are granular (that is, they are inidividually completed and add up – with the system doing the organising – to something bigger than each individual component), then scale is less of a problem. However, if students need to coordinate their activities, collaborate directly through organisational discussions, then scale can be a challenge. Dividing a large class into sub-groups is probably preferable in this case.
Note that conversations or discussions definitely do not scale well online. Certainly, larger groups than in a traditional classroom can successfully hold discussions asynchronously; but real-time interactions online tend to require smaller numbers or much stricter controls over who is speaking and who is listening. From experience, even using asynchronous formats, more than 60 students all having a ‘conversation’ will be more than sufficient. Indeed one reason to move beyond the traditional ‘discussion board’ as a primary means of online interaction is precisely because such boards can be overwhelming and pointless with too many users. Focused interactions, based around the in-built discussion tools in many of the applications listed on this site, can be more productive.
