Do you know the way to... Web 2.0?

With the coming of age of the Millennials, teacher training programs may become complacent, thinking that while the previous generation of digital immigrants that went into teaching may be a lost cause, things will now be different with the influx of digital natives into the teaching profession. This, however, is anything but true. Though Millennials may never have known anything except a digital, connected world, they appear to have precious little knowledge of how the attainments of the digital world can be used – as mindtools – in education. Programs for teacher training, thus, still need to train (aspiring) teachers make use of both traditional and Web 2.0 information and communication technologies as mindtools for themselves and their students. On the one hand, teachers can use these tools to engage their students in individual, collaborative and collective critical thinking and knowledge creation activities. On the other hand, they can use them themselves to help further their own professional development and thinking. In the latter case mindtools can be applied for cooperation (e.g., between teachers, teacher educators, and student teachers) and collaboration (e.g., with other teachers, experts, designers, and so forth on pedagogical projects). In this chapter we focus on electronic networking technologies (Communities of Practice) and Web 2.0 applications (e.g., weblogs) as mindtools for teacher professional development.