Web 2.0 has captured the interest and the imagination of both educators and researchers while it is expected to exert a significant impact on instruction and learning, in the context of the 21st century education. Hailed as an open collaborative learning space, many questions remain unanswered regarding the appropriate teacher preparation and the pedagogical impact of using Web 2.0 tools in the classroom practice. Do teachers feel comfortable and ready to adopt educational Web 2.0? What are their beliefs and perceptions regarding the educational potential of Web 2.0? What are the educational and contextual issues that determine teachers' challenges and decisions to use Web 2.0 in their classroom practice? This paper addresses the questions above by presenting the design and the implementation of a development program aiming to prepare teachers to make meaningful and purposeful use of Web 2.0 tools in their classroom. The model of technological pedagogical content knowledge and the authentic learning approach were the guiding principles that largely influenced the Web 2.0 pedagogical framework, which was designed and applied in this particular teacher preparation program. The program findings were encouraging as far as the participants' perceptions and beliefs towards educational Web 2.0 and the expected outcomes for the students. Implications and recommendations are drawn in relation to the use of the proposed Web 2.0 pedagogical framework to guide teachers' development and the effective implementation of Web 2.0 tools in the classroom to maximize benefits and enhance students' learning. IntroductionDuring the past decade, the nature of the Web and the way people access and use web resources for personal, educational, employment, entertainment and other social purposes, have been fundamentally changed. The browser is becoming the universal interface to a range of new generation Web tools and media storing applications. In addition, the Web has been transformed from a space where users passively retrieve information, delivered by a small group of experts (Web 1.0), to a participatory, read/write platform (Web 2.0) which broadens users' communication capabilities and enables content distribution, sharing, co-creation, and remixing through participatory practices. Web 2.0 is a collective term for a series of Web-based technologies that include blogging and microblogging platforms, wikis, mediasharing sites, podcasting, content aggregators, social networks, social bookmarking sites, and other emerging forms of participatory and social media. Timothy O'Reilly (2005), generally accepted to be the originator of the notion of Web 2.0 (Anderson, 2007), has focused on the architecture of participation in contrast to the passive consumption of information. Therefore, we can broadly define the second generation of Web applications as more personalised and communicative Web spaces that support active participation, connectivity, collaboration and sharing of knowledge and ideas among users.While students are increasingly usin...

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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to report on an investigation of university students' participation and learning presence in a blogging activity, designed to support collaborative learning. There are three main reasons justifying the current research: to better understand the structure and the dynamics of students' blogging subgroups; to reveal students' patterns of engagement and their roles within the blogging community; and to evaluate the applicability of social network analysis (SNA) in studying students' performance and learning presence in educational blogs.Design/methodology/approachThe design of students' blogging activities was rooted on the ideas of authentic learning and followed a project‐based learning philosophy. Data analysis used methods of SNA to reveal collaborative aspects of students' engagement, the different roles undertaken by the students and the structure of the community within group blogs.FindingsSNA shed light into the different patterns of students' participation and the dynamics of students' learning presence within the community of group blogs. Research findings, both quantitative and qualitative, indicated that the majority of the students in the sample were generally active and exhibited learning presence actions within their group blog. Differences between students in the various groups were also recorded.Research limitations/implicationsThe study reported here is limited by the specific sample and the context of implementation. Future research will be directed towards applying the Community of Inquiry schema, in a way complimentary to SNA, to further analyse students' learning and cognitive presence in the community of the whole blogging project.Originality/valueThe originality of the paper concerns both the educational design of the blog‐based project activities and the use of SNA to reveal the different patterns of students' participation in educational blogging activities. Results could be of value for both educators and researchers in the field.

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