You Tube if you want to – a Web 2.0 approach to staff development in web conferencing

How can we identify and make best use of potential resources in a staff development programme promoting web conferencing? What are the resources we should use? This paper regards web conferencing as a potentially powerful tool at the disposal of an institution intent on exploring new models of blended and online learning appropriate to the changing needs of 21st-century learners. It presents web conferencing in the user-centric context of Web 2.0 – the social web technologies whose educational impact is to empower online communication, collaboration, participation and sharing of resources. Based on findings from an 18-month period of evaluation and initial implementation at Leeds Met, it outlines practical staff development approaches in the related areas of user-created content and community involvement that could promote a more efficient and focused dissemination of the insights and experiences of a local, national and world-wide user group.