Looking at the new digital school: didactics 2.0 and school 2.0

Abstract

Aim. Today we have the need to develop more effective teaching methods, where the
student is no longer just a user, but becomes an integral part of the training process by creating,
selecting and processing experiences in a personal way. Digital teaching has become/is
becoming part of the school scenario along with the wealth of digital technologies and tools
that have spread over the past decades. Today’s society has changed and even the school
must be able to exploit all resources that social networks make available for capturing the
attention of “digital natives”.
Methods. The student becomes an active constructor of knowledge, integrating it in a
personal way. We talk about “didactics 2.0”, i.e. the study and improvement of teaching
activity achievable with the use of ICT tools. To create a learning environment, we must
take into account the collaboration of several parties (teachers, experts in the fi eld, students,
parents), not forgetting the complexity and multiplicity of the surrounding reality. This
learning environment can profi tably use social networks; students show to learn better if
they fi nd meaningful the subjects they are studying.
Results. The paper illustrates tools and forms of collaboration achievable with the
digital educational school environment. Social networks are used by students to the
point of becoming a real language for “digital natives”. When we talk about digital
culture, we want to highlight the participation and digitalisation of traditional cultural
processes, from which the educational environment does not escape. In the “school
2.0” approach there are some peculiarities leading the school system towards the new
generations.
Conclusions. The need to “digitise” the school is a current hot topic, also if in everyday
reality the work to do is still a lot: non-existent or obsolete computer labs, teachers who do
not consider computers as a resource. Digitised teaching can be realised according to multiple
channels that have different characteristics and purposes.