Social Media Assessment and Learner Progress Tracking

Something that has bothered me is that, while the adoption of social media (Web 2.0 tools like blogs, wikis, social networks and so on) depends on a paradigm shift and require a new way of thinking “learning”, how can we assess learner progress in a modality of tools in which user-generated content can be so scattered throughout different tools? I know you might be thinking as you read: “But these are new tools, they require a new way for evaluation, progress tracking and certification…” just like I said above. But the problem is that the adoption of the tools seems to happen at a faster speed than the attitude change toward learning assessment and certification!

Instructional Designers, instructors, learners are using social media more and more to enrich learning experiences and more research is needed concerning assessment and progress tracking in this context.

Digital Divide 2.0

Everyone is talking about Web 2.0 and how everyone has a voice, even I have suggested that in blog posts, company training designs and school work (yes I am a graduate student wishing he were a Doctor already).

Something that has been bothering me though is the fact that “all this” technology does not seem to be available to everyone, really. I am not talking about a matter of having access to Facebook and choosing not to use it. What I am suggesting is the reality of “not everyone actually has access to these ‘amazing’ collaborative technologies” as they should.

This makes educational efforts that rely on Read/Write Web tools (even though there aren’t that many such initiatives) some sort of elitist efforts.

Some initiatives like the One Laptop Per Child project try to take technology to third world countries. The Brazilian government partnered with computer manufacturers to create a more accessible PC for the people called “Computador Popular” (or “People PC”) which gave my mother, 65, the opportunity to have her first computer which we use to stay in touch now. But it is still not enough. Not enough.

I pose this more as a question. How can we make collaborative Read/Write Web tools really accessible to more people(s) in the world, especially the under-privileged? Better yet, how can we make educational initiatives that use those technologies available to more people in the world? How can we make educators aware of the possibilities of such tools for Education (after granting them access to computers)?