Web 2.0 Approaches for Active, Collaborative Learning in Medicine and Health

Introduction

Current innovations in information systems and communication services mark the switch from an “information society”, characterized by mass information seeking and based on the distribution of pre-defined and standardized data, to a “knowledge society”, that is, a society based on knowledge as a value. This emphasizes the cognitive advancement and involvement of each individual. The growing use of Internet not only modifies quickly and habitually the way people work but it also leads the race in this educational revolution.

The penetration of technology and the Internet in medical education, and in education in general, created a new situation where the teacher as mediator to knowledge can often be bypassed while the individual strives for knowledge based on their own efforts and aided by the vast amount of information and educational activities presented in the Web. When new technologies where first introduced in education about two decades ago (although experimental attempts date back to 1970s), there was a considerable hype about the emerging electronic teacher, which fortunately soon enough subsided to reveal serious limitations of the computer-to-student education model (Dertouzos, 1997). The emerging Web 2.0 paradigm however is promising to bring about yet another new situation, where the conventional human mediator as well as the electronic mediator in the form of the Internet and the Web is replaced by virtual dynamic communities of peers that learn and advance together.

This chapter will elaborate on the potential of Web 2.0 for active and, potentially, effective learning in medicine and health and review current practices and emerging advances in the field, providing an indicative overview of various projects were Web 2.0 is used to support health and medical education. The chapter will also present some example emerging application areas where Web 2.0 is expected to find its full implementation by enabling new online educational experiences not previously possible to achieve, including full support of active learning, new ways of assessment and evaluation, content sharing educational communities and content repurposing in medical education.