The Internet-based software programs that are generally referred to
as "Web 2.0" may have been perceived, as recently as last Spring,
as the latest pet technology of the educational uber-geek or the
conference presenter. However, Web 2.0 programs are rapidly
becoming tools of choice for a growing body of classroom educators,
who are discovering that they provide compelling teaching and
learning opportunities.
The phrase "Web 2.0" comes from the business world, and while it
has the ring of a marketing catch-phrase, actually describes a
significant transition in the use of the Internet, or the World
Wide Web. Web 1.0, or the Web that most of us have been fairly used
to using for some years now, has largely been a one-way medium:
this is when we look for information on the web. Web 1.0 was the
natural result of our existing mindsets of how information is
transferred, and has been a reflection of our industrial culture:
experts (or businesses) dispensing identical knowledge (or
products) to mass students (or consumers).
Web 2.0 is a two-way medium, representing the next phase of the
internet usage, and a change that (quite reasonably) has people
making a comparison to the advent of the printing press--in Web 2.0
almost anyone can become a publisher, or a "content producer." In
Web 2.0 the creation of material or information on the Web is as
much a part of our experience as the finding or reading of data has
been in Web 1.0. And in Web 2.0 the content created by regular
users can be much, and sometimes almost all, of the value from a
website. Ask any teenager about their online experience, and while
they may not know a detailed definition of the phrase "Web 2.0,"
they are certainly living it. An older generation may have hung out
at the mall, but now youth depend on social networking sites like
MySpace, Facebook, and Bebo for socializing--which are actually
just frameworks filled almost completely with user-created content.
Gone are the days of passing around the photos albums at parties
(boy, does that seem like a long time ago). Now, digital photos
(user-generated content!) zip their way directly from cameras to
photo sharing sites like Flickr and Ringo, where the posted
comments (more user-generated content) by friends are as much a
part of the experience as the photos themselves. For the last
couple of years, the relatively small but dedicated group of
educators that has always played with new technologies and brought
them into their classrooms has been doing the same thing with the
tools of Web 2.0. Early adopters of blogs, wikis, and podcasting
have talked about the value of these tools in education for a few
years, but now there is a growing swell of regular educators
beginning to discover their power. As Web 2.0 tools in education
gain wider adoption, they look less and less like a passing fad.
Why are they becoming popular? Perhaps because the inherent ways in
which these programs encourage collaboration and engagement
resonates so highly with the pedagogical aspirations of teachers
who are trying to meaningfully involve every student in something
that is personally engaging for him or for her. And likely because
these tools provide for great professional development for the
teachers themselves, thereby introducing them effectively outside
of the classroom and giving them a chance to: (1) discover the
powerful learning potential they hold for themselves, (2) find
examples of how other educators are using them in the classroom,
and (3) connect with other educators who provide a virtual support
community as they begin to implement new practices. As Web 2.0 is
then brought into the classroom, the very nature of student work
changes. When a student's work is seen, and commented on, and
collaboratively enhanced by a larger participative audience, those
students are drawn into extended educational "conversations." In
this way the relationship of the student to ideas and content are
no longer constrained to the narrow avenue of interaction with
their teachers, but they are suddenly interacting with their peers
and others in the discovery, exploration, and clarification of
knowledge. Sometimes that may appropriately be just be with an
audience of their immediate classmates. Sometimes it can
appropriately be with students and others all over the world. But
either way, it involves the students in a very proactive learning
environment. While there are a lot of new Web-based programs that
are often lumped into the catch-phrase "Web 2.0," not all of them
provide for high levels of user contribution, collaboration, and
"conversation."
