Learning, Unlearning, and Relearning - E-Infrastructures and Technologies for Lifelong Learning - page 299

Greenhow et al., Web 2.0 “is both a platform on
which innovative technologies have been built and
a space where users are as important as the content
they upload and share with others” (p. 347). These
technologies coupled with the participatory and
distributed practices they engender are changing
the way people learn (Greenhow et al.) and some
even argue are challenging universities to rethink
how they do business (Barnes & Tynan, 2007).
We have found that Web 2.0 technologies help
make just-in-time, at-your-fingertips lifelong
learning possible in ways that typical learning
management systems (LMS)—with their highly
bounded, asynchronous, threaded, and removed-
from-professional-context structure—cannot. As a
result, we are continually exploring ways that we
can integrate these online technologies into our
courses. In the following paragraphs, we describe
how a few of these Web 2.0 technologies—namely,
blogs, social networks, online document creation,
and resource sharing—can be used to help students
develop lifelong learning skills and dispositions by
attending to the specific instructional objectives
presented above.

• Set specific goals and objectives for their

learning;

• Ask both knowledge and wonderment

questions to focus learning on goals and
objectives;

• Create plans for achieving their goals and

objectives;

• Set a time line for achieving their learning

goals; and

• Identify resources that they may use while

studying.

Related, reflective students have the ability to
think about themselves as intentional subjects of
personal actions, and consider the consequences
and efficacy of those actions (Von Wright, 1992).
Students need to have opportunities to examine
their methods and options in order to develop the
skills needed for lifelong learning. Blakely and
Spence (1990) describe several basic reflective
strategies for developing metacognitive awareness
and self-directed learning skills:

• Ask students to consciously identify what

they “know” as opposed to “what they
don't know”; Blogging to Encourage Student

Intentionality and Reflection • Use journals or logs to help students reflect

upon their learning processes;

As educators, we need to strive to help students be-
come intentional and reflective learners if they are
to engage in lifelong learning. Intentional students
are self-directed and possess metacognitive aware-
ness. Purposeful, effortful, and active (Palincsar
& Klenk, 1992), these students are autonomous,
responsible learners who focus on understanding
and performance rather than the accumulation of
decontextualized facts (Bereiter & Scardamalia,
1989). We can promote the development of au-
tonomy and responsibility by encouraging students
to (Dunlap & Grabinger, 2003):

• Engage students in guided self-evaluation

through individual conferences and check-
lists to help them focus on their thinking
processes;

• Utilize collaborative activities to enable

students to test and challenge each other's
knowledge; and

• Involve students in think-aloud, role-play

and structured walkthrough activities that
encourage them to describe their thinking,
learning, decision-making, and processes.

One Web 2.0 technology that can be used to
support the development of student intentionality
and reflection is blogging. Blogs are web-based
journals in the form of frequent, chronological

• Assess what they know and do not know

about a topic;