“Education 3.0 is characterized by rich, cross-institutional, cross-cultural educational opportunities within which the learners themselves play a key role as creators of knowledge artifacts that are shared, and where social networking and social benefits outside the immediate scope of activity play a strong role” (Keats & Schmidt, 2007, as cited by Lwoga, 2012).
The notion of Education 3.0 was first introduced in the literature circles in a First Monday article by Keats and Schmidt (2007) and then later expanded upon by Professor Lengel (2013). In short, Education 3.0 is a shift in how information is generated, communicated, validated and disseminated within a technology supported learning environment. The progress from education 2.0 to 3.0 mirrors the progress from web 2.0 to web 3.0 technologies. The move towards Education 3.0 is a result from the growing dissatisfaction of current education paradigms and a need to design a system that meets the challenges of today’s society (Abas, 2010; Daggett, 2012; Toffler, 1984; Watson, Watson, & Reigeluth, 2013).
According to Lengel (2007) education 3.0 describes transformative practices while education 2.0 focused on industrial age skills and education 1.0 focused on agricultural talent. Harkins (2008) takes this notion one step further by describing education 3.0 as “knowledge-producing” and education 4.0 is marked as “innovation-producing” education (p.19). However, Harkin (2008) disagrees with Lengel (2007) historic description of how education 3.0 was established, he writes that education 2.0 was internet enabled, while education 1.0 was focused on memorization. Moravee (2008) and McPheeters (2010) mark the shift into education 2.0 with the emergence of 21 century learning skills. Gerstein (2013) writes that education 3.0 is a connectivist, heutagogical approach to teaching and learning, where as education 2.0 was a cooperative and social teaching and learning process. Siemens (2005) defines connectivist learning as one that is connected, interactive and transformative. Additionally, Gerstein (2013) calls for educators to implement Education 3.0 practices instead of “talking about doing eduction 2.0” and actually doing education 1.0 (n.p.).
One of the fundamental backbones of Education 3.0 is the shift in openness and expansion of the learning environment (Paskevicius, & Ng’ambi, 2011), where the students are producers and collaborators using new tools and information available to them (Keats & Schmidt, 2007). With the shift towards Education 3.0 Free and Open Education Resources (FOERs) (Blackall, 2009; Heller, Chongsuvivatwong, Hailegeorgios, Dada, Torun, Madhok, & Sandars, 2007; Lwoga, 2012), mobile learning (Gerstein, 2013), and social networks have become imperative to successful implementation (Blackall, 2009). Furthermore, Keats and Schmidt (2007) claim that the interactivity of emerging technologies has the potential to connect students to larger “socio-political learning environments” (Carmichael & Farrell, 2012). Instructors are seen as conductors and facilitators of learning, while the student armed with internet resources contribute to the classroom experiences. Furthermore, the roles of institutes are also changing; the primary role has shifted to one of “accreditation” (Bradwell, 2009), moving away from the role of information gatekeepers. Several reports and texts (e.g. Davidson & Goldberg, 2009; Wiley, 2009) echo the call to restructure education to meet the changing students and society.
The chart below is aggregated from several readings, including: Moravec (2008b), Gerstein (2013), Keats and Schmidt (2007), and Lengel (2013). It discusses how the purposes and values of certain instructional elements has changed over time. For example: the way in which meanings are constructed have differed; the technology competencies of the learners has grown; the learning pathways have changed, in that students no only learn from instructors; the space in which learning occurs has also changed; as have the instructor roles.
It is imperative that learners have a positive experience with the learning tools and environments in that the resources are user-friendly and accessible (Wang, 2013). Additionally, as individual learners have varying preferences, instructors leveraging Education 3.0 techniques need to consider learning styles (Oblinger &Oblinger, 2005). Kolb (2005) identifies four different learning modes: concrete experiences are a receptive and experience-based model; abstract conceptualization is an analytical and conceptual model; active experimentation is an authority-directed and impersonal learning model; and reflective observation is a reflective model. These four approaches can be further combined to include additional learning models. The ways in which people interact with technology also differs and produces varying opportunities ingrained in the world around them (Orlikowski, 1992). Watson et al. (2013) call for reform to current educational practices to better engage students. Furthermore, Wang’s (2013) empirical study found that students engaged in traditional learning displayed less satisfaction than students using web 3.0 technologies.
References
Abas, Z. W. (2010). A framework for higher education 2.0: 21st century education for 21st century learners.
Blackall, L. (2009). Open educational resources and practices. Journal of e-Learning and Knowledge Society, 3(2), 63-81.
Bradwell, P. (2009). The edgeless university. London, UK: Demos.
Carmichael, E., & Farrell, H. (2012). Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Online Resources in Developing Student Critical Thinking: Review of Literature and Case Study of a Critical Thinking Online Site. Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice, 9(1), 4.
Daggett, W. R. (2010). Preparing students for their technological future. International Center for Leadership in Education.
Davidson, C. N., & Goldberg, D. T. (2009). The future of learning institutions in a digital age. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Gerstein, J. (2013, May 13). Education 3.0 and the Pedagogy (Andragogy, Heutagogy) of Mobile Learning. Retrieved September 8, 2014.
Harkins, A. M. (2008). Leapfrog Principles and Practices: Core Components of Education 3.0 and 4.0. Futures Research Quarterly, 24(1), 19-31.
Heller, R. F., Chongsuvivatwong, V., Hailegeorgios, S., Dada, J., Torun, P., Madhok, R., & Sandars, J. (2007). Capacity-building for public health: http://peoples-uni. org. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 85(12), 930-934.
Keats, D., & Schmidt, J. P. (2007). The genesis and emergence of Education 3.0 in higher education and its potential for Africa. First Monday, 12(3).
Kolb, A. Y., & Kolb, D. A. (2005). Learning styles and learning spaces: Enhancing experiential learning in higher education. Academy of management learning & education, 4(2), 193-212.
Lengel, J. G. (2012). Education 3.0: Seven Steps to Better Schools. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Lwoga, E. (2012). Making learning and Web 2.0 technologies work for higher learning institutions in Africa. Campus-Wide Information Systems, 29(2), 90-107.
McPheeters, D. (2009, October). Cyborg learning theory: Technology in education and the blurring of boundaries. In World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education (1), 2937-2942.
Moravec, J. (2008a). Moving beyond education 2.0. Education Futures.
Moravec, J. (2008b, September 29). Toward Society 3.0: A New Paradigm for 21st century education. Retrieved September 12, 2014.
Oblinger, D., Oblinger, J. (Eds.), (2005). Educating the Net Generation, Educause. Retrieved from: http://www.educause.edu/educatingthenetgen/
Orlikowski, W. J. (1992). The duality of technology: Rethinking the concept of technology in organizations. Organization science, 3(3), 398-427.
Paskevicius, M., & Ng’ambi, D. (2011). The Potential for Education 3.0 in a Developing Context using Giddens’ Structuration Giddens’ Structuration Theory. Retrieved from: http://www.bluelightdistrict.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/mpaskevi_Research_Paper_v2.pdf
Siemens, G. (2005). Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age. International journal of instructional technology and distance learning, 2(1), 3-10.
Toffler, A. (1984). The Third Wave: The Clasic Study of Tomorrow. New York, NY: Bantam Publishing Group.
Wang, J. E. N. N. Y. (2013). Education 3.0: Effect learning style and method of instruction on user satisfaction. European Academic Research I 1(5), 755-769.
Watson, W. R., Watson, S. L., & Reigeluth, C. M. (2013). Education 3.0: Breaking the mold with technology. Interactive Learning Environments, (ahead-of-print), 1-12.
Wiley, D. (2009). Openness, Disaggregation, and the Future of Schools.TechTrends, 53(4), 37.
Najia's Reflexivity Archive (Status: Hiatus) 