Facilitating new forms of discourse for learning and teaching: harnessing the power of Web 2.0 practices

When asked what they would find most helpful to enable them to use technologies more in their teaching, most teachers say 'give me examples, in my subject area' and 'point me to relevant people I can discuss these issues with'. Web 2.0 technologies - with their emphasis on sharing, networking and user production - seem to offer a potential solution. However uptake and use of Web 2.0 sites such as blogs, social networking and wikis by teachers for sharing and discussing practice has being marginal so far. This paper focuses on work we are undertaking as part of the Open University Learning Design Initiative (http://ouldi.open.ac.uk) and the Hewlett-funded Olnet initiative (http://olnet.org). A key focus of our work is the development of tools, methods and approaches to support the design of innovative learning activities and open educational resources. In this paper I want to focus on one strand of our work; namely, how to leverage technologies to promote better sharing and discussion of learning and teaching ideas and designs.