1. What was it like in Crete…
Nice place, nice cuisine, and very nice company, that’s how I would sum up our
experience in Crete.
I say “our” because, thanks to the Politics project, two teachers from the “Erasmo da
Rotterdam” could join the Workshop on Collaborative Learning which took place in
Chania from the 10th to the 16th of April. So, together with Dino Galante, on the 9th
of April I caught a flight to Crete.
Now, what was it about?
At the end of the very first day of the workshop I felt dazed and floating into a soap
bubble for the amount of information I received and the strange feeling that all
those notions were too abstract for me.
That was probably why in the Italian school system we are not used to apply
technological tools and internet to didactics.
The purpose of the workshop was, in fact, that of introducing and spreading the use
of Web 2.0 tools in learning processes. If you don't know what a web 2.0 tool is, this
opportunity will not attract your attention that much, but, once you get in touch with
them, you suddenly realize that they entail such an incredible transformation in our
way of exchanging information that you just can't believe it.
Anyway, before going on to explain what we did, it is important to clarify what is a
Web 2.0; below I quote the definition given by wikipedia:
“The term Web 2.0 is associated with web applications that
facilitate participatory information sharing, interoperability, user-
centered design,[1] and collaboration on the World Wide Web. A Web
2.0 site allows users to interact and collaborate with each other in a
social media dialogue as creators (prosumers) of user-generated
content in a virtual community, in contrast to websites where users
(consumers) are limited to the passive viewing of content that was
created for them.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0)
Examples of web 2.0 tool are wikipedia, facebook, twitter, flickr or slideshare, so, in
plain words, a platform which allows you to share information and knowledge and to
work in a collaborative virtual environment, without having to pay for anything, not
even copyrights. These tools, in fact, enable us to carry out projects with people
from other countries, to communicate in real time with everybody from all over the
world and share information, all FOR FREE (this is amazing if we take into
consideration the steady lack of funds for cultural activities).

2. Anyway, going back to Chania, what we did was "playing” with these tools for a week:
each day an expert lectured us about a new tool, afterwards we had time to try them
and ask for further explanations. Furthermore, in order to exploit them, we created
and developed simple projects, scenarios and digital stories so that throughout them
we had the chance to explore all the resources of the Web 2.0. Everything was
carried out together, in couples or small groups, as to reproduce the virtual
environment in which every user is allowed to give his/her personal contribution to a
project.
It follows that the leitmotiv of the entire workshop was that of "sharing": our point
of view, our ideas, our work in order to create something useful, bigger and free for
everybody to use. Such a “free” approach to this amount of information available on
the web turns out to be a kind of revolution for our world based on the concept of
copyright and we should exploit it as much as we can.
Finally, I could say that, first, Chania offered us a great opportunity to get in touch
with new tools and, secondly, gave us the time and the chance to get to know them,
which is something almost impossible to be done in our normal daily routine.