Web 2.0 Technologies and the Quality Matters Rubric.

On our readings for the 5th week we read an article of the uses of Web 2.0 technologies and we also had to use the Quality Matters Rubric for assignment #2. I found an article called Using Web 2.0 Technologies to Meet Quality Matters Requirements.

Some of the ideas discussed in the article are very interesting. For example, to meet standard 1.4 which is self-introduction by the instructor is appropriate and available online,  Also standard 1.5 which is when students are asked to introduce themselves to the class the authors suggest to create an activity called “all about me” in the conference area of the online course. Another alternative suggested by the authors is to use the students’ Facebook page to meet this standard. Nevertheless, the article also highlights some disadvantages when using Facebook one of them is that some students want to keep their personal lives separate and prefer not to mix class work with this social network.

A second suggestion to meet standard 2.3 in QM which is all learning objectives are stated clearly and written from students’ perspective. Pollacia and McCallister advise to use Radio James Objectives Builder a website that offers a tutorial to write proper adjectives using Bloom’s taxonomy. I took the time to visit the webpage and I enjoyed the outstanding tutorial. There’s always a need to refresh one’s knowledge in this case about writing out objectives for a course and the website is easy to use and it’s a marvelous aid for teachers.

A third suggestion is to use blogs to meet standard 5.2 which refers to learning activities fostering instructor-student, content-student and student-student interaction.  Pollacia and McCallister mention that students are familiar with blogs and use them to communicate socially and this technology permits the student to keep brainstorming and engaged. According to both authors blogs promote active learning, which is a key component of constructivism and a valuable goal to keep in mind for instructors.

This article presents interesting ideas to meet standards in the Quality Matters Rubric and gives important alternatives for teachers to keep in mind. The fact that all of these options are free and widely used by users especially Facebook and blogs is a plus for teachers and students at the same time.

Pollacia, L., & McCallester, T. (2009). Using web 2.0 technologies to meet quality matters requirments. Journal of Information System Education, 20(2), 155-162.