Tales from the Web 2.0 Zone

Web 2.0

For many of us early adopters of technology it has a nice kind of ring to it, as if our visions of future collaborative practices had at last come out of beta. For others, the moniker might bring sardonic snickers, as it parades its ostensible newness like the proverbial emperor. Others, having slept through Web 1.0, may assure themselves daily that it’s just another internet fad, destined to disappear after its allotted 15 minutes. Whatever our attitudes, it constitutes an enormous part of our students’ lives and experiences, and we would do well to at least take the time to look at it. To that end, I invite everyone to contribute their success stories (and their perhaps not-quite-as-successful stories) about their encounters of the 2-ish kind with current web 2.0 apps. Feel free to use the comments feature to simply respond to some of the ideas here!

What’s What with Web 2.0

No one is still quite sure what exactly web 2.0 is or means, but we all know that it sounds great! Service providers and retailers hawk their web 2.0 capabilities as if waving that magical wand will call forth a multitude of users—and it often does. The geeky and the nerdy among us know that the term was first coined during a meeting between O'Reilly and MediaLive International in 2004 as a way to differentiate the pre-dot.com internet from the domains remains that remained after the dot.com bust. To try to pin down this slithery concept further, consider the difference between Netscape (the king of web 1.0) and Google, the beloved search engine and wizard that customizes and tailors each of our surfing experiences. “Web 2.0,” then, is a way to refer to a change in the philosophy of the web, a move to seeing the web as a platform upon which to work and play collaboratively.

Google, open-source software, social networks, blogs, content managements systems (think Wikipedia), social bookmarking sites such as Del.icio.us and Technorati, YouTube , Flickr, E-bay, Facebook, all share the same fundamental approach; in
O’Reilly’s words and map, “they have embraced the power of the web to harness collective intelligence.”

Harnessing Collective Intelligence

So the web has finally arrived to a place so many of us envisioned in the early days of the internet, a place and space to work and play together. The web has morphed to a platform upon which to collaborate in building knowledge and sharing knowledge to create a more democratic, open exchange of perspectives. Over the next few weeks, I plan to take a closer look at some of these services, delving more deeply into the possibilities these new spaces offer for our classrooms. I hope these forays into the wilds of 2.0 will challenge us to again rethink our pedagogies in light of the developing technologies.