Using a Social Web 2.0 Tool in Geography and Environmental Research Project: A Content Analysis of Greek High School Students’ Learning Exchanges

The first part of this paper refers to the contribution of geographic education in the development of knowledge, attitudes and skills for environmental protection in the context of sustainable development of the world's societies. Thus, specific concerns identified regarding the young people participation in research and collaborative actions using Web 2.0 applications, in the context of geography and environmental education, through sociocultural constructive view of learning. In particular, the concerns relating to the way of the young people interaction using an educational online environment and how it can help to improve their learning process. Accordingly, the study considered the following research question: Does the sociocultural constructivist interaction of students in an educational online environment affect their cognitive development and their geography and environmental approach to the research issue? The answers to above question is given by the empirical part of the research that is based on results which focused on the analysis of sociocultural constructivist interactions of high school of Athens students (N=16) during an eight-month geography and environmental for sustainability research project in a social computing and specifically a free social bookmarking site, Diigo. The results indicated that the quality of their interaction was at a satisfactory level with most complete learning exchanges, progressively developing essential skills for an organized and integrated geography and environmental approach, throughout the project.

With the use of Diigo applications, the students seemed to follow an auditing process of search, comparison and sharing relevant information, exchange of arguments, further exploration and promotion of other views, and also assessment the feasibility of proposed solutions, reading and interpreting maps and other graphic representations of spaces and places" (Exarchou et al., 2015, p.51)