Buying into Web 2.0

If I could hit the like button for reading assignments, I would like like the Bruns & Humphries Building Collaborative Capacities in Learners.  Reading about the difficulties experienced by the educators in the report allowed me to see why I've been having difficulty grasping the concepts of Web 2.0 and its uses in formal learning.  The report stated that the concepts of a wiki-style learning environment "...exist largely in contrast with traditional education practices and linear models of production."  The article went on to discuss  problems some teachers had applying the new system to a formal learning such as scaffolding student learning using the wiki rather than social interaction in the classroom, teachers' lack of  recognition of the functionality of the tools in the wiki, trying to assess student work using traditional methods, and most importantly shifting from teacher-centered to user-led learning models.

Some of the benefits of the user-led produsage are:

• It's a free-market.  Produsage "rewards individual contribution, but the work is available for others to engage with and build upon in pursuit of a large group objective."
• The wiki encourages contribution from shy or reluctant students and counteracts domination of class discussions by some students.
• The wiki allows users to post links to online resources which might be relevant to the topic at hand. 
• Using a wiki would allow a teacher to access student participation in a group project throughout the time of the project.  Students would benefit from not "bypassing the personal and intellectual challenge of encountering and accommodating the individual working styles of other team members. 

Well, I feel like the light bulb just went off a couple of days ago.  Whew!