The use of Web 2.0 tools in education from the point of view of future teachers

The main characteristics of Web 2.0 technologies, such as openness, interactivity, collaboration, social networking and collective intelligence are consistent with the contemporary considerations in the teaching practice (constructivism and connectivism). Web 2.0 tools have thus found their application in education, resulting in what is today called e-education 2.0. New Web 2.0 technologies provide students at all levels with a different way of communicating and cooperating, simple creating, exchanging and commenting on their contents, learning in a more interesting way and the independent publishing of projects and other papers. Web 2.0 tools make students change from receivers of information to persons that can actively generate information and it allows them to learn through experience. However, the question is, how much have Web 2.0 tools penetrated into our reality of education and whether the students of teaching studies, the future teachers, have recognized the pedagogical value of Web 2.0 tools. This is the crucial research question dealt with in this paper, which presents the results of research conducted on a sample of students of junior and senior elementary school teaching studies at the Universities of Rijeka and Pula.