Web 2.0 is essentially an increasing range of software that supports a variety of technologies for open and collaborative communication, learning and creativity. Discuss.
Internet has influenced the daily lives of a significant number of people and changed rapidly. Web 2.0 is new phenomena in which has attempted to connect users via social networking sites for worldwide collaboration. At present, Web 2.0 is returning to its original roots as a reading and writing tool and also entering a new, more social and participatory phase. Such a trend has lead to the belief that Web 2.0 is essentially entering the web into a ‘second phase; a new and improved one. This shift of the Internet from passive to active, from consumer to participant-oriented, is what characterizes the transformed Internet. While it has essentially transformed learning and creativity, it should be remembered that many people are still resistant to escape the world of the standard web.
There are a number of web-based services and applications that demonstrate the foundations of the web 2.0 concept, which have been used a great deal for collaborative learning, communication and creativity. These are not essentially technologies, but rather services built using the building blocks of technology and open standards that underpin the Internet and web. These include blogs, wikis, multimedia sharing services, content syndication, podcasting and content tagging service.
Blogs refer to a simple web page consisting of brief paragraphs of opinion, information, personal diary entires or links, commonly referred to as posts, arranged chronologically with the most recent first, in they style of an online journal. Blogs allow any visitor to comment on any entry. Simply, it is an open gateway for communication and collaborative learning. As Youchai Benkler, Yale University Law Professor calls a ‘weighted conversation’ between a primary author and a group of second comment contributors. Simply such advancement in software has allowed for ongoing communication to an unlimited number of readers. Linking is also a vital component embedded in all blogs. Linking, depending on the conversational nature, adds a sense of immediacy and further allow for a set of clear and instructional learning and collaboration to take place. None the less, as they place a strong emphasis on tagging it allows for a theme based menu and categorised information, making it much more simple and clear for any participant.
A wiki is a web page or a set of WebPages that can be easily edited by anyone who is allowed access. Wikipedia is such an example in which was quick to gain acknowledgement and popular support. Such a success has shown that the idea of Wiki, as a new Web 2.0 services, has been widely understood. It has effectively shown the importance of Web 2.0 in learning as it assists group work and collaboration. Unlike blogs, wikis generally have a history function allowing for previous stores to be examined. Wikis can be deemed of great use to learning owing to there extreme ease of tools, their extreme flexibility and open access contributing to collaborative group work. Undeniably there are problems with such openness in these systems. Many wikis, just like Wikipedia itself has suffered problems of malicious editing and vandalism.
Yet while it is safe to say that the web 2.0 has been a world wide development enhancing learning, creativity and collaboration, users are not essentially accepting the phenomena with ease. Simply, many of these software developments are concatenations, that is, making use of existing service. Consequently users are not getting the most of the services, still inertia to the change, and using it simply as a web or internet service. While many of these services are relatively mature, it will take a will for users to gain trust and acceptance with these advancements.
In terms of teaching and learning however, this social software could be used as one of the most effective tools. For students, in the classroom wikis can be used for students to work together to interpret texts, author articles and essays, share ideas and improve their research and communication skills collectively. Through adopting the Wiki into the classroom setting students are also granted the opportunity to reflect and comment on either their work or others. It is also believed that wikis are a useful writing tool that aid composition practice, and that blogs are particularly useful for allowing students to follow stories over a period of time and reviewing the changing nature of how they are commented on by various voices. In these scenarios, education is more like a conversation and learning content is something you perform some kind of operation of rather than ‘just’ reading.
But these advancements in social software are not without contest. Besides the worry regarding the learners attention and identity, the emerging digital divide between those with access to specific equipment and skills and those who do not, there exists specific tension. Whilst few professionals pay particular focus to the idea of self production to argue that learners find the process more convincing when they are producers as much as consumers, others have agreered that many learners are not concerned in accessing, manipulating and broadcasting material. Simply they believe that they are resistant to this changing in learning and education. Recently there has been a growing assumption that whilst many young people are so lacking the motivation to engage in education once these new technologies are integrated into the education environment they will loose their initial attraction.
Within a short time frame of fifteen years, the World Wide Web has grown from a group work tool into a global information space with more than a billion users. At present the reality of web 2.0 still encounters its traditional read and write tools yet entering a new more social community and participatory phase. In the future the large scale collection of user data and creation of user generated content will continue and no doubt deepen as people explore new ideas. This will continue a rapid expansion as more people come online and existing users increase their use of web 2.0.Just how great the growth will become is dependent on the number of people who actually have the time and inclination to participate- witness the large number of blogs that are set up and abandoned. None-the-less while such is a drive for resistance, the production process to generate such online content will become more sophisticated with the advent of increasing powerful and easy to use software.
Personal Catalogues, digital collection of music, photographs, books and music, have also become a growing trend in the web 2.0 in which has enhanced the ability of communication and collaborate learning. Personal collections will eventually become extremely important to people developing into a personal archive. They may very well contain information on a persons educational experiences and have direct links with personal learning environments. Hence we see a future of web 2.0 in which is particularly designed to enhance collaborative learning, communication and creativity. Increasingly, as the amount of available information online grows, and network effects continually, a persons path through the information space will become profoundly important. In essence this will improve the overall communication of any one personal willing to participate in the new reality of the world wide web.
The phrase “Web 2.0″ can looks at the transition of websites from isolated information silos to interlinked computing platforms that act like software to the user. Web 2.0 also includes a social element where users generate and distribute content, often with freedom to share and re-use. With software advancments including wikis, blogs, social book markings, podcasts and tagging, web 2.0 has chnaged the reality of interaction. Simply it has allowed for improvement in communication, learning and creativity as it has made it easier for one to place themselves in the web. The argument which still exists however is whether web 2.0 does represent a new version of World Wide Web at all, or merely continues to use web 1.0 technologies and concepts.
