The 'Ownership' of Learning and Web 2.0+

Interesting thesis: Instead of building stuff (learning IT) we want, how about using stuff the students already use?

When using software applications supported by the university or college, students are not driving. They are in another iteration of the classroom that is owned by the teacher. The teacher is driving. Some institutions have tried to get around the no-own, no-learn conundrum by creating a non-institutional-looking portal named "My [something or other]." These institutions understood the problem: If technology is owned by the institution, it is no more liberating to the mind than the teacher-owned classroom.

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It's time for a model of co-discovery I read about recently where students all choose a Web site for the class to try out and evaluate. The teacher didn't know which site they would choose so the students owned the choice and the site they had chosen. The students didn't know how the site could be used for teaching and learning. So, both teacher and students needed to learn from each other. They chose a number of sites during the semester and succeeded in using a few but discarded most.