Pre-teens’ informal learning with ICT and Web 2.0

Abstract

Information and communication technology (ICT) and Web 2.0 have the potential to impact on learning by supporting inquiry, literacies, collaboration and publication. Restrictions on the use of these tools within schools, primarily due to concerns about discipline and child safety, make it difficult to make full use of this potential in formal educational contexts. Studies of children at different stages of schooling have highlighted a wider range of ICT use outside school, where it can be used to support informal learning. The study reported here looks beyond the broad categories of primary and secondary education and investigates distinctive elements of pre-teens’ use of ICT to support informal learning. Nineteen children aged 10 and 11 participated in focus groups and produced visual representations of ICT and Web 2.0 resources they used to support their informal learning. Thematic analysis of this data showed that pre-teens respond to a range of age-related constraints on their use of ICT. Inside formal education, these constraints appear similar at primary and secondary levels. Out of school, regulation is more age specific, contributing to the development of tensions around use of ICT as children approach their teenage years. These tensions and constraints shape the ways in which children aged 10–11 engage in formal and informal learning, particularly their methods of communication and their pressing need to develop evaluation skills.

Keywords:

• evaluation
• informal learning
• ICT
• pre-teens
• Web 2.0

Notes

1. Becta was, at the time, the UK’s lead agency for the promotion and integration of ICT in education.