Creative Networks of Practice Using Web 2.0 Tools

This paper examines the professional implications for teachers and managers in new and evolving forms of professional development using Web 2.0 tools in a European context. Research findings are presented from the “Creative Use of Media” learning event developed through a European eTwinning Learning Lab initiative in spring of 2009. The Creative use of the Media online learning event supported a series of initiatives celebrating the European Year of Creativity and Innovation and involved 135 participants from 27 countries. The key objective was to introduce a range of learning themes constructed around a phenomenon-based inquiry model, which supported interdisciplinary approaches and collaborative online learning methodologies to stimulate new teaching and learning rationales. Digital Web 2.0 technology was used as an independent creative medium and as a powerful facilitating tool to enhance and blend with the more traditional forms of visual, audiovisual and multimedia inquiry. In developing models encapsulating risk taking and experimentation this online learning project supported a general principle that future education models and professional development would be based on social learning and “customer-driven collaborative knowledge building” in relation to open source materials. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-2467-2.ch020