e-Learning, Web 2.0 and beyond

Integration of Web based ICT tools in education aiming to bring quality education to everyone and everywhere is a worldwide phenomenon. Teachers and learners are benefited as these tools increase efficiency and effectiveness of learning, teaching, planning and managing by establishing linkages and collaboration, facilitating experimentation and lifelong learning and providing easy to use management and administrative tools. Web has created various opportunities for extending teacher-learner, learner-learner and teacher-teacher communications, interactions and collaborations beyond classrooms. However, the use of Web based tools for education face diverse challenges on multiple fronts which may not only lead to digital divide, security and privacy issues but may also make integration ineffective or even injurious. This paper makes an appraisal of opportunities and challenges of the use of Web tools for education. The opportunities created by these tools in various areas of education have been studied and examined. It also identifies current and possible issues associated with the use of Web based ICT tools and proposes solutions to overcome these issues for effective integration of Web based ICT tools in education.