The Last lecture:

Thursday, 31 March 2011, 15:00 - 16:30
Media Center, Weberplatz 5, room WEB 43

Dr. Steffen Albrecht:

Learning with Web 2.0 - Challenges and Chances in the Light of Current Studies

The Web 2.0 has changed communication in our society and continues changing it. Offers like Wikipedia, Facebook or Flickr are especially for young people a part of their everyday life, and gain influence in more and more areas of life. University studies are particularly affected by this trend, which can be seen from the comparatively early popularity of the social networking service "StudiVZ".

E-learning research addressed this development very early and discussed its impact on central e-learning instruments such as learning management systems. In addition to formal learning, the focus fell also on informal learning in academic studies, and other university tasks like research and marketing. The potential benefits of Web 2.0 applications are largely undisputed. However, inhibition thresholds, which are not to be underestimated, obviously prevent a more large-scale integration into these areas.

The presentation takes up results of two up-to-date surveys in this area of conflict, and invites to discuss the challenges and chances of the Web 2.0 in university education. On the one hand, the talk will present the German Rectors' Conference guidelines with respect to the "Challenge Web 2.0" that has been published at the end of last year concerning the adoption in teaching, research and university administration. On the other hand, results of the Saxon joint research project "Learner Communities of Practice" are presented, illuminating the employment especially in the field of informal learning. For both surveys, concrete case studies from practice will be presented that depict the current state in practice. Furthermore, recommendations will be offered for further discussion on how universities may utilize the potentials of Web 2.0 more beneficially.

Lectures overview:

The overview of all lecture dates of the Media Center you find on our sites of e-learning.

This series of lectures, comprising presentations and thematic workshops, is intended to provide a broad forum that offers the opportunity to present and discuss research results as well as experiences in the interdisciplinary approach to everybody who is interested in e-learning topics.

The technical development of new solutions to utilize virtual forms of learning and teaching is still advancing rapidly. Cutting-edge solutions are developed with the objective to be efficient, durable, ubiquitous and suitable for daily use.  In the process, new questions and problems constantly arise. Particularly in science, one thing is becoming especially clear:

• The more technology promises to solve the problems of learning on its own, the more evident they become!
• At the same time, modern technologies sensibly employed may enhance the learning process to a great extent but they are far too rarely used.
• In business, e-learning is often employed for economic reasons and cost-efficiency. But anybody who develops multimedia-based components soon realizes: This costs a lot of time, skills and money. How efficient is e-learning really?

This shows that the area of conflict in this topic is huge and reveals a great need for discussion and exchange of experiences.

For suggestions, requests and enquiries please contact:
Media Center E-Learning team, elearning@tu-dresden.de, tel. +49 351 463-34942 /-37846