Web 2.0: A meaningless marketing buzzword or the new conventional wisdom?

My Space, You Tube, del.icio.us, blogs, wikis, VOIP, Flikr...... you may well have heard of these on the news and in the papers over the last year. Web 2.0 seems to be everywhere but what actually is it?

There has been a great deal of argument and hot air about what Web 2.0 actually means. Tim O'Reilly coined the term Web 2.0 at a conference way back in 2004 and attempts to clarify what it means here.

Wikipedia the online collaborative encyclopaedia (loved by some and hated by others) describes Web 2.0 as "a supposed second generation of Internet-based services—such as social networking sites, wikis, communication tools, and folksonomies—that emphasize online collaboration and sharing among users." Given that definition, Wikipedia itself is very much Web 2.0.

According to Webopedia, an online dictionary of technology terms (geek speak), Web 2.0 is - "the term given to describe a second generation of the World Wide Web that is focused on the ability for people to collaborate and share information online. Web 2.0 basically refers to the transition from static HTML Web pages to a more dynamic Web that is more organized and is based on serving Web applications to users. Other improved functionality of Web 2.0 includes open communication with an emphasis on Web-based communities of users, and more open sharing of information. Over time Web 2.0 has been used more as a marketing term than a computer-science-based term. Blogs, wikis, and Web services are all seen as components of Web 2.0."

The Learning Lab has an overview of some of the Web 2.0 tools

So if that's what it is, what can we do with it? How does Web 2.0 relate to university life? For a start you are using Web 2.0 technology now by reading this blog. The resources section of this website contains a wiki and an area within it, 'the Playground', where you can, well, have a play. For librarians what about Library Thing? Here people can connect though the books they read. Does this have implications and applications for university libraries? Then there is the concept of tagging. Democratisation of cataloguing?

In working life group activity is commonplace but group work in universities can often be a problem. How can you tell who did what? How can you ensure that the work is truly a collaborative effort rather than a collection of individual pieces of work. Wikis in particular lend themselves well to group work as Futurelab point out. Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) are also useful in the area collaborative working and can also be used for reflective learning. You can find more information about collaborative and reflective learning the Uses for e-learning section of this site.

This post has barely scratched the surface of what Web 2.0 might be and it's implications. In the past 'Content was king' and whilst content is still important Web 2.0 allows users to have power. Users no longer only have the option of reading or watching what has been created for them but can now create, edit, delete, connect, discuss.......... In the university context if we substitute 'users' for 'learners' in the previous sentence, the implications are great - in both senses of the word.

A tale for our time....

Dr. Ebenezer dragged himself to bed. What a day! It was now 2am and at 9am tomorrow it would all start again. Teaching lectures with so many students that some had to sit on the floor with no way of getting to know the students or the students being able to work together, constant phone calls interrupting his work, exams to mark, students he knew were cheating but couldn’t prove it, students who didn’t really understand what they were doing or even why they were doing it. The list was endless and on top of it all some idiot had sent him a circular telling him how he had to ‘embrace the concept of e-learning’ to ‘enable students to fully engage in the learning process’. He’d fully engage them if he had a chance! As if he didn’t have enough to do.

“Why can’t I just teach and do my research” he thought. “I wish no one had ever invented e-learning!” His head was thumping and the pain in his neck was coming back again but, after what seemed like hours of tossing and turning, he eventually managed to fall into a fitful sleep.

He woke with a start. It was still dark outside and as he rolled over to turn on the light he felt something against his feet. There was an object at the end of the bed. He switched on the light and there, shining brightly, was a genie’s lamp, straight from Aladdin. Well, everyone knows what to do with a genie’s lamp. Maybe he could wish for an extra day every week, smaller classes and wish away all that e-learning nonsense. So he rubbed the lamp and out came, not a genie but a man in a sharp suit with laptop under his arm and winning smile across his face.

“Great” said the man in the suit “I’ve been waiting to touch base with you so that I can run some ideas up the flagpole that you might want to pick up and run with.”

“What?” said Dr. Ebenezer.

“You need to keep in the loop so that you can fully buy into the technological paradigm shift that Web 2.0 facilitates.”

“What?” said Dr. Ebenezer.

“Listen. Third generation e-learning can transform the learning experience, save you so much time you can do twice as much research, improve you students grades and why” said the man in the suit as he leant towards Dr. Ebenezer with a slightly disturbing glint in his eye “it will even improve your sex life.”

That was it. Dr. Ebenezer had heard some rubbish in his time but this was….. Suddenly all the stress of the previous week began to explode. He grabbed the creepy salesman by the throat and violently shoved him back into the bottle and threw it out of the window.

“Touch base with that!” shouted Dr Ebenezer as the bottle disappeared into the darkness below. Dr Ebenezer slowly returned to bed and attempted to get back to his much needed sleep. But not for long….

“Ehe ehe” came a coughing sound from the end of the bed.

“Ehe ehe”

“Not again!” thought Dr Ebenezer as he sat up and turned on the light.

But this time standing at the end of the bed was not the creepy salesman but someone who looked strangely familiar.

“I’m sorry to bother you” said the person at the end of the bed “but I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation.”

“What?” said Dr. Ebenezer.

“Sorry, I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation and I’ve got a few things you might find interesting.”

This was all starting to get too weird. Maybe the stress was getting to him or it was the cheese he’d eaten before going to bed.

“OK” said Dr. Ebenezer as he lay back down with a weary resignation.

“Er, right, yes. Erm, would it be useful to be able get students to check their work signs of plagiarism so that they can get a better understanding of what plagiarism is rather than searching through it yourself? It requires a bit of setting up but works pretty well”

“Well, that would be quite useful” thought Dr. Ebenezer.

“Would you like students to be able to work in groups outside lectures and seminars? Where they can work through problems by research and discussion and you can keep an eye on what they are doing?

“Hmm…, I’d need to think about it but that could be quite useful as well” thought Dr. Ebenezer.

“Would you like students to be able to work through some of the areas of the module at their own pace, be able to check on their progress as they go and then go back to any parts they didn’t quite understand? It takes a bit of work to set up but if you can use a word processor, you should find it relatively straight forward.”

“Hmm…, that’s sounds interesting” thought Dr. Ebenezer.

“Well, if you’re interested and want to find out a bit more get in touch we can go through the ideas in more detail”.

“Erm, thank you” said a rather bemused Dr Ebenezer

Then the strangely familiar person turned to leave.

“Before you go” said Dr Ebenezer. “I realise that this is supposed to be some kind of fable, so shouldn’t there be a moral?”

“Ah yes, nearly forgot. The moral of the story is -

E-learning won’t fulfil all the outlandish claims of the salesman but it can provide some real benefits to learning and teaching. There are some new skills to learn and some investment in time is required but it’s not rocket science. Unless of course you were talking about ionizing Argon by exposure to electrons provided by a cathode filament, then that would be rocket science”

“Anything else?” asked Dr. Ebenezer hopefully.

“No, sorry it can’t do that” she smiled as she left the room.

Little LAMY

I am currently exploring the use of LAMS in higher education. It's an open source tool for creating online, interactive lessons. I can see some really powerful uses for this particularly with collaborative, problem based learning in areas such medical education and teacher training.

I've set up a test server and am beginning to have a play. We'll see what happens.