Using web 2.0 in higher tourism education

This practice paper provides knowledge and inspiration on the integration of web 2.0 technologies in tourism higher education. The integration of web 2.0 in higher education rests on socio-cultural learning theories and important elements in a web 2.0 educational design are interaction, joint creation of content, critical thinking and collaboration between students and teachers both face-to-face and online via social media such as discussion forums, blogs and wikis. The paper explains how social media can help provide a frame for student preparation, support project working methods and activate and challenge students in engaging and motivating teaching and learning activities that result in in-dept learning. Such activities should be carefully planned. Particular attention is paid to providing students with instructions on how to interact with content and with each other in online learning environments. For learning to happen in a virtual learning environment, the learning process of students should be carefully scaffolded. The paper provides examples of web 2.0 learning activities from the INNOTOUR platform, which is a joint platform for students, teachers, businesses and researchers of tourism. The article exposes how the integration of web 2.0 in teaching involves much more than the integration of new educational tools. We argue that it is a radically different way of understanding and co-creating knowledge and learning, which has a range of implications. Among these are curriculum revisions to create alignment between learning objectives, web 2.0 learning and teaching processes, and student assessment. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.