Social constructivism, and more recently communal constructivism, are recognised as having a positive effect on students’ learning experience (Vygotsky, 1978; Holmes et al, 2001). Many educators argue that Pedagogy 2.0 which entails the use of Web 2.0 tools provide richer and more engaging pathways to learn with great potential for facilitating student multimedia content creation, interactive information sharing, student-centred design and collaboration (Cochrane, 2010; McLoughlin and Lee, 2007; 2008). Studies suggest that students gain a better understanding of subject knowledge and develop transferable skills while using Web 2.0 tools (Lee et al., 2006). However, there are authors who believe that not all students may be familiar with technology (Crook et al., 2008; Kennedy et al., 2007) and with some questioning the ideology of Web 2.0 which they claim has not been seriously evaluated and has affected Pedagogy 2.0, resulting in its failure (Williamson, 2009). The research project aims to explore the pedagogical merit of Pedagogy 2.0; more specifically, to establish the ways and extent to which the process of involving students as producers of multimedia curriculum content enhances their understanding of subject knowledge and broader life skills.

This paper explores the second phase of the project which is a comparative account of three studies using Pedagogy 2.0 undertaken at Plymouth University in the disciplines of Accounting, Early Childhood Studies and Medicine during 2011/12. In the research studies conducted in the disciplines of Accounting and Early Childhood Studies, students use Web 2.0 applications to produce podcasts and wikis that incorporate curriculum content students are expected to learn but which is not covered by the tutor. In the study undertaken in Medicine, a group of senior students develop multimedia resources for students in years 1 and 2 to assist them in their social sciences learning. Students thereby take an active role in constructing their own knowledge and in constructing knowledge for their learning community. Phase one consisted of a summative evaluation of three previous studies (Campbell-Barr et al., 2011; Dalton, 2009; Schoenborn, 2008) followed by semi-structured interviews conducted with students to explore their experiences of producing multimedia content and the perceived effects of these learning experience on their understanding of subject knowledge and broader life skills. In phase two, a number of changes have been made to the implementations of Pedagogy 2.0 to reflect the findings that emerged from phase one to maximise the benefits of using this pedagogy of participation in a Web 2.0 environment. Such important factors as explicit introduction to the learning objectives and outcomes, the extent of pedagogical integration of Web 2.0 applications into course design, student motivation, students’ doubts over quality of content produced by their peers, re-assurance and support from ‘experts’ as well as tutor feedback, evaluative mechanisms and level of students’ technological literacy (Schoenborn et al, 2011) were considered to different degrees by tutors when adapting and integrating participatory approaches using Web 2.0 tools into their modules.

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