1. Introduction to Web 2.0 Education in distributed networks
Image by paradigm4
TAFE NSW, Sydney Institute, Workforce Development Unit

2. What is web2.0?
A phrase made famous by Tim a conference in 2004
Web 2.0 refers to a perceived second generation of web development and design, that facilitates communication, secure information sharing, interoperability, and collaboration on the World Wide Web. Web 2.0 concepts have led to the development and evolution of web-based communities, hosted services, and applications; such as social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies. - Wikipedia, 20 April 2009

3. Web 2.0 defining characteristics
the Web as a platform, web services which use the browser, easy to use
User generated content the driving force
Easy to create, distribute and share content, often collaboratively via RSS
Folksonomic content classification using TAGS
The "Network Effect" - services improve the more people who join - e.g del.icio.us, flickr
Makes it easy to find other users with similar interests and form online communities – Social Software

4. Convergent forces
Mass uptake of broadband since ADSL & 3G “two-thirds of households (66.6 per cent) were connected to the internet. A relatively large proportion of households (25.7 per cent) indicated they had a high-speed broadband connection” - Key findings of the Digital Media in Australian Homes study, ACMA, 2005
The ubiquity of connectivity, home, work & mobile
Rise of the mobile web
Increase in computing power both in terms of the server & client side
The rise in new web based business models which support free services from advertising revenue ie. google

5. Web 1.0 vs Web 2.0 Web 1.0 was about reading, Web 2.0 is about writing
Web 1.0 was about companies, Web 2.0 is about communities
Web 1.0 was about client-server, Web 2.0 is about peer to peer
Web 1.0 was about HTML, Web 2.0 is about XML
Web 1.0 was about home pages, Web 2.0 is about blogs
Web 1.0 was about portals, Web 2.0 is about RSS
Web 1.0 was about taxonomy, Web 2.0 is about tags
Web 1.0 was about wires, Web 2.0 is about wireless
Web 1.0 was about owning, Web 2.0 is about sharing
Web 1.0 was about Netscape, Web 2.0 is about Google
Web 1.0 was about web forms, Web 2.0 is about web applications
Web 1.0 was about dialup, Web 2.0 is about broadband
Web 1.0 was about hardware costs, Web 2.0 is about bandwidth costs
Web 2.0
Web 1.0
Copacetic

6. Examples of Social Software
Blogs & online journals - Blogger, LiveJournal, Edublogs
Web-based RSS feed readers - Bloglines, Google Reader
Wikis & collaborative writing tools - Wikispaces, Mediawiki
Social networking sites - MySpace, Yahoo 360
E-portfolios and Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) - elgg.net Ning
Media publishing & sharing - Flickr YouTube
Social bookmarking - del.icio.us, Diigo
Podcasting, vblogging - Odeo, Podomatic, blip.tv Viddler

7. RSS – The distributed model
RSS is the connecting fabric of web2.0 services, providing the conduit for information flows between distributed networks.
Means to subscribe, syndicate and remix (mashups)
All about the connected information flows between decentralised nodes, characterised by a willingness to share, mix and feed.
Image by Dion Hinchcliffe€

8. Blogs & Online Journals
"blog" is derived from "Web log”, 1997
Online diary, regularly updated & displayed with the newest entry at the top
blog combines text, images and links to other blogs
Very easy to create and publish i.e. blogger
Bloggers speak to other bloggers via links & comments
RSS used for distribution & syndication

9. Educational uses for blogs
Students can use blogs to process and record what they learn.
Teachers can use blogs to process and record what they teach.
Flexibility for learners - students can catch-up if they miss a class.
A summary of a course that prospective students or new teachers can refer to.
Students can refer to each other's blog and support each other's learning.
Other faculty can refer to course blogs of their colleagues and improve team teaching.
Topical and subject focused blogs can be an engaging learning resource.
Fosters a Community of Networked Learners
Source: The Networked Learning workshops, Leigh Blackall

10. Podcasting & Vblogging
Grew out of the blogging movement, form of audio blogging
Uses same subscription & distribution model pioneered by the blogging movement based upon RSS
About audio when and were you want it
Gains mass visibility in 2005, with podcasting support in Apple iTunes
Easy to produce and distribute

11. Wiki’s
A wiki is a website that can be easily edited from within a web-browser.
They are especially suited for collaborative authoring.
Can be edited by anyone on the network or by members of a defined community
All edits are archived and can be rolled back to at any time
Wikipedia - the free, collaboratively built online encyclopedia - is the best known example of a wiki.

12. Blogs vs Wikis Blogs Wiki’s
personal, less collaborative, posts made by an author
typically monologue with audience commentary
text is considered to be static: once posted, the posting doesn't change much
immediate: written in the moment, written of the moment
Wiki’s
public & open to collaboration
aim is creation of fluid documents
knowledge is ephemeral: it changes, can be changed

13. Examples
Blogs
Our Class A blog for an Adult Migrant English Programme (AMEP)class at St George College of TAFE
myLearning
Wikis
Wikipedia - the free, collaboratively built online encyclopedia

14. Tagging
Tagging is a method of categorisation whereby key words are assigned to web based resources by users
Each user "tags" the resources arbitrarily according to their own personal preferences.
tags are shared (rss) & grouped to form knowledge sharing networks

15. Taxonomy - The science of classification
From the greek verb:
Taxis = "to classify"
Nomos = "law, science, economy"
Hierarchical-enumerative top down tree like structure
Hierarchies designed and maintained by experts
Repositories catalogued by experts - libraries
Structure imposed on the world of objects
Centralised classification

16. Folksonomy - Social classification
Folk + Taxonomy meaning that it emerges from the people
Open democratic system
Constantly evolving based on user interactions and consensus
tags capture the social fabric at that moment in time
Structure is an emergent property
Well suited to rapidly changing heterogeneous information sources such as the internet and social networks
Distributed classification

17. Web services that use Tags
Del.icio.us - A social bookmarking site that allows users to bookmark many sites and then tag them with many descriptive words, allowing other people to search by those terms to find pages that other people found useful.
Flickr - A service that allows users to tag images with many specific nouns, verbs, and adjectives that describe the picture. This is then search-able.
Gmail - A web-mail site that was one of the first to allow categorization of objects using tags, known as "labels" on s.
LibraryThing - A social book cataloguing and community website, tags feature heavily here.
Technorati - A weblog search engine.