A Simple Definition: Web 2.0

Recently a colleague asked me how I might define Web 2.0 (two point oh). Since I always like a challenge, the first thing I thought about was my dear old dad.

Even though my father worked on computers when 8K was the size of a refrigerator, he is not much for jargon. In conversation recently, I dropped the word “wiki” into a sentence. He then asked, “What’s a wiki?”

My first reaction was, “Oh lawd, I’ve forgotten that I live in this techie bubble! I need to remember to speak in plain English.”

While I am aware of many resources that speak of “user generated content,” I am wanting to approach this definition from a more concrete base. At the risk of over simplification, here’s what I’ve come up with so far. Let me know what you think and/or how I might improve upon this working definition.

Web 1.0 = me
Web 2.0 = me + you

Web 1.0 = read
Web 2.0 = read + write

Web 1.0 = connecting ideas
Web 2.0 = connecting ideas + connecting people

Web 1.0 = search
Web 2.0 = recommendations of friends/others

Web 1.0 = find
Web 2.0 = share

Web 1.0 = techies rule
Web 2.0 = everybody rules

Image: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/75/177926979_9bd2709608.jpg

Online Tools for My Students

This is a list of the tools that my students and I have used or played with this semester. Many I rely on. Others I am experimenting with. Feedback and/or recommendations welcome. (^ ^)

A GMail account. All sharing collaborating, communicating starts with GMail including GoogleDocs, Spreadsheets, Surveys, Presentation, Google Reader, Google Sites, iGoogle, and Google Groups. I have replaced my Entourage calendar at work with Google Calendar (and I am excited to start playing with Chrome someday). Wave is still in the “gaming” stage. And while use multiple search engines for differing purposes, I start with Google Search (with ads off and Twitter search). Google Scholar is also useful for finding articles and research quickly. Google Earth has been used as well for student activities and “play.”

Personal learning journals are kept using Blogger or WordPress.

Social bookmarking is done with Delicious. While I use FriendFeed and Diigo weekly, I still rely most heavily on Delicious. I have also taught student to search it and SlideShare to find helpful resources and information.

When playing with concept maps, we have explored Gliffy, Bubblous, Wisdomap, and MindMeister. For rubric development we use GoogleSpreadsheet and Rubistar with some success.

I am experimenting with Mendeley as a bibliographic resource. I started with EndNote, then switched to keeping spreadsheets in Google.

We used Audacity to support digital audio recordings and Jing for our screencasting activities. Prezi has also been used to create unique presentations. Glogster has been discussed but not integrated into our curriculum in a meaningful way.

VoiceThread was introduced as a way to combine audio, visual, and textual interaction online.

Wordle is always fun for looking at patterns in bodies of text.

Twitter has been used to support discussion and dialogue as well as collaboration and assessment. I use Tweet Deck to stay in touch with my Twitter PLN.

YouTube has served as a host for several student projects plus serves as a great resource for teaching and learning.

Tumblr is my digital errata filing cabinet.

I recently discovered hundreds of wonderful music playlists on LastFm.

I use my uni’s library catalog and WorldCat for searching books. I use Amazon for examining similar texts and recommendations.

While visit Facebook on occassion, my students are all dedicated users. They have even presented lesson content and quizzes with it. My students are quite savvy!

I use Flickr for personal photos and Picasa for professional work. Flickr is also used to find Creative Commons media.

Wikipedia is used as the CliffsNotes of the world.

My college uses Moodle as a course management system and we recommend Firefox for browsing. Additionally, Firefox has hundreds of add-ons for enhancing our time on the Web.

Wiki-wise my students have used WetPaint (too many ads), but I prefer Wikispaces or PBWorks.

Skype is still a favorite for VoIP-ing. And in my college we use Elluminate for collaborative Web conferencing.

We’ve played with a number of games in class including The Eyeballing Game, a Wikipedia-based trivia game, short-term memory games, dexterity games, strategy games, prisoner’s dilemma, Poisson Rouge for the six-and-under set, musical ball dropping, and In Bb for a class symphony.

And while the TED site is not a tool, it continues to inspire me and my students and I thought it deserved an honorable mention.

Images:

Compassion: http://www.bestmadeco.com/FEATURES/catalogs/fall09/P1030484.jpg
Computers: http://2.media.tumblr.com/Hxs1TBsQ4lqq501cbrWuOHslo1_500.jpg
Tools Mosaic: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2222/2085828080_9f56f1abc7.jpg

How I Am Using Twitter to Design and Develop a Course

Barry Bachenheimer, a student here in our online EdD program in Educational Technology, asked me to share my thoughts on the question, How has technology and/or media affected a change in the way you learned in the last year? for a conference he is working on.

Interestingly enough, I am working on developing course called Instructional Computing 2 for our department. And there are so many ways to think about designing a course, so I decided to try something different.

Since June 2008 I began tagging my favorite Tweets from my Twitter network. Twitter has a tool that will allow you to do this, i.e., marking a tweet as a favorite. For me Twitter is a learning network, a place where I can follow the shared thoughts of hundreds of local, national, and international teachers, scholars, movers, and shakers.

I started sifting through the two hundred or so favorited tweets. Some tweets were to weblinks, some were simply thoughtful reflections. As I sorted through them I noticed specific patterns emerging related to topics I wanted to cover in my class, like social and participatory media, identity, change, innovation, life on the screen, trust, safety, opportunity gaps, relationships, sharing, communication, collaboration, social action, civic engagement, and the future.

This process of using Twitter and my learning network (i.e., social media) has allowed me to develop a comprehensive course that embodies the collective intelligence of hundreds of brilliant people. In this sense, social media has clearly impacted the way I think about course content and course design. I can learn from experts, share in their thinking and discoveries, and engage them with follow up questions and comments. This is a large shift in the way I develop course content. I used to begin designing a course based on what I know. Now I start with what others know and and work my way from the edges to the center.

Pretty neat, huh?

image: http://ny-image1.etsy.com/il_430xN.29721697.jpg

[video link: How I am using Twitter to design and develop a course]