Web 2.0 - Where are we now?
By now, most readers will be familiar with the term ‘Web 2.0’. For most, it's probably still a fairly vague term, and seems to have something to do with Facebook. Or was it YouTube? Web 2.0 has certainly been making headlines, but is there a firm set of ideas and practices which are gaining currency, or is it just another version of the ‘dot-com boom’ of the late 90s and early 21st century? Well, before attempting to evaluate the success and impact of Web 2.0, let's step back and clarify what we mean by this oft-derided buzzword.
The term ‘Web 2.0’ was, according to popular mythology, coined by the technology guru and futurist Tim 0'Reilly, at the first Web 2.0 conference held in October 2004. Tim O'Reilly was the first person to recognise this emerging trend and describe the characteristics of ‘The New Web’. He defined these characteristics as:
- The Web as a platform
- Data as the driving force
- Network effects created by an architecture of participation
- Innovation in assembly of systems and sites composed by pulling
together features from distributed, independent developers (a kind of ‘open source’ development) - Lightweight business models enabled by content and service syndication
- The end of the software-adoption cycle (the so-called ‘perpetual beta’)
- Software above the level of a single device, leveraging the power of the ‘Long Tail’
- Ease of picking-up by early adopters
At first glance, the list seems fairly abstract to the newbie. "Data as the driving force"? "Architecture of participation"? Are these just meaningless abstractions, or is there really something new, something different taking place? Well, let's start by evaluating this from our own point of view - as learners and teachers, here in 2007. What impact has Web 2.0 had on how we learn and think about learning in this age of information?
Perhaps the key feature that separates Web 2.0 from the old, top-down Web and the even older book-based models of learning is this ‘architecture of participation’. A prime example of just such a philosophy is Wikipedia. The phenomenal success of what frankly sounded like a daft idea just five years ago shows what is possible using a fairly basic set of features. This basic set of features, when combined with a so-called architecture of participation, means that anyone, anywhere can contribute to a singular, global body of knowledge. While some of the old guard are failing students who use Wikipedia as a reference source, others are seeing the potential of this first attempt at creating a human encyclopaedia. Students in some institutions are now being encouraging to add and edit information on Wikipedia as part of their course work. The low barrier to entry means that it is no longer necessary to have specific technical tools or skills in order to take part - as Time magazine pointed out when they decided that You – the user, would be the Person of the Year in 2006.
Over in the corporate world, wikis are beginning to replace company
intranets and personal hard drives as a shared knowledge base. By
allowing every employee to contribute, knowledge management has entered uncharted territory. No longer is knowledge passed down from on high, rather it is built organically using a very simple set of tools.
This shift towards simpler, shared tools has had a big impact within
education. The Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies
(www.c4lpt.co.uk) recently published their reader's poll of the Top 100 tools for Learning. The top 10 featured Firefox, Gmail, WordPress, Blogger, Google Reader and del.icio.us, all great examples of Web 2.0 applications or websites and all free and very easy to use. They are also prime examples of ‘the Web as platform’. Increasingly, we are seeing more and more of our lives and productivity tools migrate online. Often the online versions suffer when compared to desktop software in terms of functionality, but more and more we seem to be willing to sacrifice some of that functionality for the convenience of sharing our data online. In fact, many U.S. universities are now using Gmail to manage student email accounts, which raises interesting questions about the boundaries of privacy within the world of Web 2.0.
Aside from the low barrier to this architecture of participation, what other trends from Tim 0'Reilly's original list are making a big impact on how we learn? The fairly recent phenomena of the ‘mash-up’ has certainly made a huge difference to how we go about conceiving of and creating a learning environment. Popular online applications such as MySpace and Facebook make it easy for anyone to assemble a collection of personal learning assets to share with friends and colleagues. By adding RSS feeds, YouTube videos, Flickr badges, Twitter status updates and the ever-growing myriad of Facebook applications to your personal profile page or blog, creating a personal learning environment becomes part of our everyday lives.
Once the preserve of the teenager, Facebook is now branching out into corporate communications and education, with applications such as its courses feature as well as tools for libraries. Elgg, an open source initiative loosely based on Facebook, has seen the opportunity of creating a social networking application aimed squarely at teachers and students, and as a result has experienced phenomenal growth and popularity.
So what can we conclude from all of this? Even though we may not be aware of it overtly, there can be no doubt that Web 2.0 has had a huge impact on how we think about learning. Aside from the more obvious examples, such as Wikipedia and Facebook, the ethos of Web 2.0 has begun to invade our consciousness. No longer will we be content with information which is pushed to us - we now feel it is our right to publish, comment upon, rate, tag and share information in a way that only 10 years ago would have seemed the stuff of dreams.
Ishmael Burdeau
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