DESIGNING FOReLEARNING

UNDERSTANDING WEB 2.0 &

eLEARNING 2.0Version 1.0

How to tiptoe your way through the Web 2.0 buzzword minefield ...

Social Software, Blogs, Wikis, Elgg, RSS, Aggregators, Podcasting, Social Bookmarking, Tagging, Del.icio.us, Digg, Tag

Clouds, BuzzClouds, Vodcasts, YouTube, Technorati, Second Life, Social Sharing, Flickr, Swickis, AJAX, MySpace, FaceBook, iTunes,

TeacherTube ...

... without exploding!

This document (with working links) is available onlineat http://tls.vu.edu.au/eLearning/eDesigning_Web2_Notes.doc

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The notes here support the online resource eLearning: Designing & Creating Your Online Unitat http://tls.vu.edu.au/eLearning/default.html

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Table of Contents

1. What is Web 2.0?

2. Web 2.0 looks different. How?

2.1 Tag clouds, BuzzClouds ... 42.2 Design practices differentiating Web 2.0 sites ... 5

3. Web 2.0 is much more than its design approach

4. What is social software?

5. Examples of social software

5.1 RSS ... 75.2 Collaborative spaces ... 75.3 Social bookmarking ... 75.4 Social sharing services ... 75.5 Podcasts ... 85.6 Vodcasts ... 8

6. Using social software ...

6.1 ... to create, publish & distribute ... 9

6.11 ... using Blogs ... 96.12 ... using Wikis ... 106.13 ... using social bookmarking ...106.14 ... using social sharing ... 10

6.2 ... to subscribe, read, recreate ... 11

6.21 ... using RSS ... 11

6.3 ... to collaborate ... 11

6.31 ... on diagram-based content ... 116.32 ... on the content of any webpage ... 116.33 ... as a workgroup ... 11

(continued over)

4

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5

6

7

9

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7. Creating your own podcast

7.1 What is a 'good' podcast like? ... 127.2 What is a 'true' podcast? ...12 7.3 Record and edit your audio ... 127.4 Convert your finished audio to an mp3 and upload ... 137.5 Create your RSS feed ...13

7.51 An example of an xml file (the RSS feed) ... 147.52 An annotated example of an xml file ... 15

7.6 Set up your podcatcher ... 167.7 Promote your podcast ...177.8 Resources on podcasts and podcasting ...17

8. Web 2.0 References

12

18

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1. What is Web 2.0 ?

Has Web 2.0 been hyped beyond belief? Absolutely!

But is it useful for educators? Definitely!

As Kim Roach of SiteProNews (where you can read the full article) points out,

"… underneath all of the chatter is a concept that is even more powerful than the hype that surrounds it" ...

... and that concept is collective knowledge, an idea that underpins all Web 2.0 structures and processes. By providing opportunities for people to participate, collaborate and share information, Web 2.0 technologies supply the 'social glue' that connects and binds users into communities of practice. They create and encourage the development of active stakeholders rather than passive recipients of information. Both eLearners and their facilitators are web users - stakeholders - in the learning process. Web 2.0 provides opportunities for their voices to be heard.

Wikipedia defines Web 2.0 as:

"… a second generation of services available on the World Wide Web that lets people collaborate and share information online. In contrast to the first generation, Web 2.0 gives users an experience closer to desktop applications than the traditional static Web pages. Web 2.0 applications often use a combination of techniques devised in the late 1990s, including public web service APIs (dating from 1998), Ajax (1998), and web syndication (1997). They often allow for mass publishing (web-based social software). The concept may include blogs and wikis."

2. Web 2.0 looks different. How ?

2.1 Tag Clouds, BuzzClouds

A Web 2.0 site might display a tag cloud (in a Swicki , it is known as a BuzzCloud) a group of dynamically-generated links which highlight those keywords - tags - that are being used by the community for searches or other activity. Their size reflects popularity - the more popular a tag is, the larger it will appear. If reading this page online, use the tag cloud links below to explore some of these Web 2.0 buzzwords ... otherwise check the eLearning website.

Flickr Blogs RSS Vodcasts Wikis

iTunes Elgg TeacherTube Aggregators YouTube

Digg Social

SoftwareTagging BuzzClouds Swickis

Podcasting Social Networking FaceBook Technorati MySpace

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del.icio.us Social Bookmarking AJAX Second Life

PageFlakes

2.2 Design practices which differentiate Web 2.0 sites

In general Web 2.0 design practices have moved away from hard-edged boxes and square tables to flexible curves.

They are characterised by rounded designs, big text, gradients, glassy effects, bright colours, tabs, reflections, large buttons, and big text boxes for user interaction.

Create your own rounded corners with these tutorials:

http://www.webcredible.co.ukhttp://www.alistapart.comhttp://www.web-20-workgroup1-swicki.eurekster.com

Create the gradients often seen in Web 2.0 sites, especially as backgrounds. A typical background might use a gradient fill that fades from one colour at the top of the page to another colour further down.

See the tutorial at http://www.photoshoplab.com

3. Web 2.0 is much more than a differentiated design approach

The characteristic design elements mentioned above have emerged as style markers for Web 2.0 sites, but these superficial aesthetic differences alone do not make a Web 2.0 site. Web fashion is as ephemeral as any other fad, and Web 2.0 is no exception. Within a few months, 'ordinary' websites will no doubt adopt the gaudy plumage of Web 2.0, and the differentiation cycle will begin afresh. When you really get down to it, it's all eye-candy anyway.

The real heart of Web 2.0 is that it is designed to change the way we experience online interactions. The new AJAX (Asynchronous Java and XML) development approaches, together with changing paradigms of information ownership, allow developers to build collaborative architectures which encourage participation and information-sharing amongst users.

An eLearning environment can be (should be?) so much more than an information repository. A web presence is a place which can be made to feel nearly as tangible as reality space. With good design, production and programming skills it is possible to create virtual learning spaces which are every bit as engaging as other life experiences. And where there is engaged experience, there is learning.

Kim Roach's article in SiteProNews exhorts educational designers to:

"Create an experience, not just a site."

An online article: Meaningful, Engaged Learning, which appeared originally on the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory site, highlighted a number of indicators of engaged learning. Many of these appear to relate strongly to the collaborative approaches espoused by Web 2.0 practitioners. The article in turn owes much to:

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Jones, B., Valdez, G., Nowakowski, J., & Rasmussen, C. (1994). Designing Learning and Technology for Educational Reform. Oak Brook, IL: North Central Regional Educational Laboratory.

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4. What is social software?

[This section is based on the workshop materials presented by Anne Bartlett-Bragg at the Learning Technologies conference 2006 and which appear on the LT2006 Wiki.]

Social software refers to the range of applications that

augments group interactions and shared spaces for collaboration,

augments social connections, and

aggregates information exchanges in a web-based environment.

Social software can also be considered as the major component of the current Web 2.0 definitions and at the focal point of e-Learning 2.0, a term attributed to Stephen Downes in 2005 where he characterises the use of social software applications as "… placing of the control of learning itself into the hands of the learner…" (Downes, 2005, paragraph 12).

See also Anne Bartlett-Bragg's "Social Software: The Age of Connection and the Connected Learner"

Social software can generate powerful learning networks - from simple individual actions that help create an 'architecture of participation', to links that connect people for a common purpose.

Weblogs (blogs), wikis, social bookmarking and tagging (so-called Web 2.0 tools) have all emerged as powerful collaborative tools, but their greatest transformational potential exists within organisations that embed them into their learning strategies.

The underpinning assumptions of social software are intricately bound up with social learning theories that recognise that learning occurs in a social context.

More about social learning theories

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A different view of Social Software and its implications for teaching and learning can be found on Christopher D. Sessums' Weblog: Thoughts on learning, teaching, and computing. His article: Cultural Implications of Social Software, Teaching, and Learning: Ready or Not is both thoughtful and thought-provoking.

5. Examples of Social Software

[Sections 5 & 6 are based on the workshop materials presented by Anne Bartlett-Bragg at the Learning Technologies conference 2006, and which appear on the LT2006 Wiki.]

5.1 RSS - provides syndication & aggregation. It stands for Really Simple Syndication – a method of XML-based programming that allows content to be imported into other web pages.

RSS enables readers to subscribe to information (webfeeds) from sites of their choice, monitor updates, and view them in a single page from a web-based service called an aggregator - eg. Bloglines - a free subscriber service.

The power of the aggregator for learners comes from the ability to control and manage the flow of information in a centralised manner.

5.2 Collaborative spaces - web-based collaborative publishing spaces such as weblogs, or blogs, have been the main reason for the increasing popularity of social software. They have developed into powerful personal spaces that allow authors to self-publish and organise their information or knowledge.

In addition, because of the interactivity provided to readers through comments or linking and the ability to subscribe to updates through syndication, weblog technologies have become the foundation for further developments in education.

Other web-based shared spaces like wikis provide users with the ability to communicate, co-edit documents and web pages, share calendars, view multimedia presentations and build collaborative projects.

The popularity of these applications has been attributed to ease of use and flexibility. The user only requires internet access and does not need HTML programming skills. Popular examples of free wikis used in educational settings are Wikispaces or PBWiki.

5.3 Social bookmarking or tagging with folksonomies: Social bookmarking is a web-based process that is similar to a favourites list in a browser - except that it allows the user to bookmark, manage, publicly publish, comment upon, and create their own tags for each URL they want to share.

The objective is to publish your resources for other people with similar interests. The key to the shared resource is the development of social tagging systems - called folksonomies. The name is derived from the term taxonomy - a hierarchical list or categorisation. A folksonomy focuses on a group of people who co-operatively organise information into agreed categories.

In addition, social bookmarking tags have RSS feeds which can be collected into a learners' aggregator, making it a powerful research and resource gathering tool. A well-known example is Del.icio.us.

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5.4 Social sharing services - similar to social bookmarking, these are applications that share other services – for example, Flickr is a web-based photo sharing service that uses the folksonomy tagging process to collect and share photos publicly or privately across the web. In an educational context, photos can be gathered for projects and agreed tagging systems adopted to allow collective sharing.

e.g. Go to the Flickr site and in the top right hand corner, type "LT2006" into the Search everyone's photos box and hit search. The results will gather all the photos from any Flickr user who has tagged photos with LT2006 (Learning Technologies Conference 2006).

5.5 Podcasts - digital audio files that are downloaded from the internet onto learners' personal audio playing devices such as iPods, where the content can be listened to at the learners' convenience.

Podcasting is emerging as one of the most popular current innovations in social software with major research projects investigating the beneficial effects on learning. See Impala.

Edition 10 of the Knowledge Tree - the Australian e-Journal of Flexible Learning in Vocational Education is dedicated entirely to podcasting.

5.6 Vodcasts - Here are 2 short video podcasts - i.e. vodcasts of 9 minutes each from Alex Halavais on blogging in education. Not only is the content engaging but they also demonstrate how you can use a site like YouTube to deliver a short message to enrich the learning experience!

Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LA-OzkEKe4Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41l9D0i9ZVo

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6. Using Social Software

6.1 To create, publish & distribute …

6.11 ... using Blogs

A. Contribute to our own VU blogs:

Login to the VU Social Networking Blog using your old Netscape (LDAP) username and password and start participating … [We use an underlying Elgg system for VU. For eLearning applications, the Elgg platform is now known as EduSpaces.]

Or try the new, on-brand eLearning Blog from FLU.

B. Or create your very own personalised blog:

Free, hosted weblogs for educators - one is Edublogs, but there are many more.You could use Technorati (a search engine for all things bloggy) to find them.

C. If you are a looker, not a doer, then at least look at:

The Learning Technologies Blog which has some good material, including posts on The end of "e" Learning, Virtual Worlds & 3D Learning, and the forthcoming Learning Technologies 2007 Conference.

D. Some technical features of blogs A blog is a type of website with entries displayed in reverse

chronological order (most recent first) Archives of previous posts are stored (often by month, year) Categories assigned to posts allow effective content management for

author and reader - i.e. personalised micro-content management Permalink: Each post in a weblog is assigned a unique URL that

facilitates the viewing and/or retrieval of any individual post Comments: Allows readers to provide feedback. The weblog author

can moderate these Link Lists are displayed in the side bars - can be used as URLs, or lists

of other weblogs that the author reads and could be regarded as a source of personal recommendations

Trackbacks and Pings: The trackback feature was designed to provide a notification system for weblog authors. They notify another weblog author that you have written something about a particular post on their blog. It is a method of person A saying to person B, "This is something that may interest you." In practice, person A sends an alert - a trackback ping - to person B through the weblog software. The alert is often received in email format and is the process which develops a dialogue across distributed conversations within a network.

RSS & Syndication: Most weblogs have the ability to publish content in a XML format known as RSS

Personalisation of layout: Weblogs hosted by a web-based service can offer a number of page design templates called blogskins. These can be easily modified without programming or web layout skills. The individualisation of the look and feel permits the blogger to express their personality and convey their site's purpose to their readers.

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6.12 ... using Wikis

A. Create your very own Wiki: Using Wikispaces Using PBWiki Using Wetpaint

B. If that's all too scary, then at least look at:

The Learning Technologies Wiki which has some great material, including the stuff you are reading now.

C. Some technical features of Wikis Easily editable web pages - with levels of access Based on wiki-text - but each software application varies slightly, so

spend a little time familiarising yourself History of edits - each page can display an 'audit trail' of edits Tagging - most software now includes tagging features Rich media - some products now support the inclusion of rich media

(video, images etc) Comments - most products include comments or a discussion area for

each page PDF pages - some products can save pages from the Wiki as PDF files File repository - some products have file storage areas to hold

additional documents RSS - some products have RSS capabilities to distribute information.

Additionally, some products have the capability to subscribe to information and display results on the wiki.

6.13 ... using social bookmarking

Social Bookmarking with Del.icio.us

Use the web-based program Del.icio.us to develop shared resources for a common interest group based on folksonomy tagging systems.. You can also use it to search for others with similar interest.

You can capture a Del.icio.us feed and publish it on your blog or wiki.

6.14 ... using social sharing

Social Sharing with Flickr

Use Flickr - a web-based photo-sharing site - to publish photos publicly, for friends and family only, or just keep them private. Create slide shows and much more.

You can search for photos on any topic by using tags e.g. enter bad spelling in the search box and click the tags button for some great shots!

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6. Using Social Software (continued)

6.2 To subscribe, read, re-create …

6.21 ... using RSS

Managing information is one of the biggest challenges we currently face - that's where RSS can help.

To subscribe to sites with RSS feeds, you need an aggregator - like Bloglines . Once you have an account, you can subscribe and manage your information.

You can also pull some of those feeds into another site - eg. you can add a Flickr badge to your blog, or your Del.icio.us bookmarks.

Or - you can use a program like PageFlakes to gather everything into one place.

6.3 To collaborate …

6.31 ... on diagram-based content

Gliffy is a free web-based diagram editor. You can create and share flowcharts, network diagrams, floor plans, user interface designs and other drawings online.

Gliffy allows:

Diagramming in your web browser without downloading additional software

Adding collaborators to your work

Linking to published Gliffy drawings from your blog or wiki

Creation of many types of diagrams such as Flowcharts, UI wireframes, floor plans, network diagrams, UML diagrams, or any other simple drawings or diagrams

6.32 ... on the content of any webpage

Gabbly is a unique chat application that can be activated on (or embedded in) any web page by adding 'gabbly.com/' in front of any URL.

Learn more by reading the Gabbly Blog

6.33 ... as a workgroup

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See a comprehensive list of collaborative software applications on Wikipedia

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7. Creating Your Own Podcast

7.1 What is a 'good' podcast like?

The most engaging are like short radio programs. They can be an interview, a newscast, a discussion, a Q&A session, a set of step-by-step directions, an editorial - or just about any format as long as it is interesting. An unedited recording of a lecture or workshop - or any long monologue - generally does not make for an entertaining podcast.

Educational podcasts are available on almost every subject, and many are updated on a regular basis. Some podcasts come from reputable organizations like National Geographic, The New York Times, and Scientific American ; some others are less credible. Use your understanding about the veracity of sources online and choose accordingly.

7.2 What is a 'true' podcast?

 Distinguish between: the mere placement of audio on a website or Learning Management

System (LMS) for learners to:

o listen to as a streaming audio fileo download to their computer for later useo download to an mp3 player such as an iPod

true podcasting - a 'publish & subscribe' model which requires the learner to have an mp3 player and 'podcatcher' software such as iTunes.

What sets podcasting apart from the simple hosting of mp3 files is that subscribers automatically get updates as soon as you post new audio material to your server. For that to happen, you will have to create an 'RSS feed' for your podcast. (More on how to do this later.) This alerts subscribers' podcatchers to your updates and allows them to be downloaded immediately.

7.3 Record & edit your audio

Before you can podcast, you have to record (or at least edit) audio files.

While there is much software available to record and edit audio files, a free program such as Audacity is quite adequate for this task. Because there are many flavours of audio files, you might need to use a file conversion utility as well. If you record and edit material in ".wav" or ".wmp" format, to podcast you will need to convert it to ".mp3" format.

Here are a few short files on which you can practise:

Matrix 1 Matrix 2 Matrix 3

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Try joining two files together, editing out some words to change the meaning, recording and adding your own narration - whatever you like.

7.4 Convert your finished audio to an mp3 and upload it to a website

Your audio editing program may result in the final output being in WAV format. This will certainly be the case if you are using Audacity. For podcasting, you need to save and upload the new file as an mp3 - i.e. save it with a .mp3 file extension.

To do this, you may need to download and run the LAME MP3 Encoder.

You may have to set the "bit rate" - use the minimum bit rate that gives good results. Some suggested settings:

48 - 56k Mono - speech, lecture, instructions, audio books, talk radio 64k+ Stereo - for music, combination of music & speech 128k Stereo - good quality music

Upload the audio file to your website or blog in the same way that you would upload html files or a Word document.

Once you have done this, create the webpage which will contain links to your audio files. Here's an example of such a page.

At this stage, you do not yet have a podcast - you have merely hosted some audio files on a server. Learners can listen to the audio files and can even download them to an iPod or similar - but it is not yet a podcast until you create an RSS feed.

7.5 Create your RSS feed

To make your file ready to podcast, you need to create an RSS feed - i.e. an XML file in a text editor such as Notepad (don't use Word!), and then upload the file to your server, just as you did for your mp3 file.

The XML file contains the links and descriptive information for each of the audio tracks on your channel. XML files are just text files which are saved with the extension .xml instead of ".txt".

The XML file is actually code that is used to ensure that your learners are notified promptly when you update your track, and that their software gets the right file from the right place. It therefore has to have exactly the right syntax and format.

This is not as difficult as it might seem. You do not need programming skills to create an xml file - just an eye for detail and a little patience. A template for an xml file is supplied for you on the next few pages - just insert your own details and upload the file.

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7.51 An example of an xml file (the “RSS feed”) used for two mp3 files

(See the annotated example on the next page for instructions on how to edit the coloured sections ... Also, if you wish to be pedantic, remove the spaces between ‘paragraphs’ below – they are only there for clarity)

When you have finished editing the file below, get rid of all this stuff you are reading now and the horizontal line below this paragraph. Just copy and paste the edited file to Notepad as a text file but using the suffix .xml and upload it to your server, preferably in the same folder that contains your mp3 audio files.

<?xml version="1.0" ?> <rss version="2.0"><channel>

<item> <title>Corp Law Exam Prep Workshop Part 1</title><link>http://tls.vu.edu.au/SLS/podcasts/default.html</link><description>Helen Murphy's workshop on preparing for your Corporate Law exam - Part 1</description><link>http://tls.vu.edu.au/SLS/podcasts/WkshopCL_Murphy/CorpLawWkShopHM__Pt1.mp3 </link><enclosure url="http://tls.vu.edu.au/SLS/podcasts/WkshopCL_Murphy/CorpLawWkShopHM__Pt1.mp3" length="5199445" type="audio/mpeg"/></item>

<item> <title>Corp Law Exam Prep Workshop Part 2</title><link>http://tls.vu.edu.au/SLS/podcasts/default.html</link><description>Helen Murphy's workshop on preparing for your Corporate Law exam - Part 2</description><link>http://tls.vu.edu.au/SLS/podcasts/WkshopCL_Murphy/CorpLawWkShopHM__Pt2.mp3 </link><enclosure url="http://tls.vu.edu.au/SLS/podcasts/WkshopCL_Murphy/CorpLawWkShopHM__Pt2.mp3" length="5392124" type="audio/mpeg"/></item>

</channel>

</rss>

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7.52 An annotated example of an xml file (the “RSS feed”) for two mp3 files

[One such RSS feed can hold details of up to 15 audio files.]

The code to be used is in this column Notes<?xml version="1.0" ?> <rss version="2.0"><channel>

Do not edit this section.

<item> <title>Corp Law Exam Prep Workshop Part 1</title><link>http://tls.vu.edu.au/SLS/podcasts/default.html</link><description>Helen Murphy's workshop on preparing for your Corporate Law exam - Part 1</description><link>http://tls.vu.edu.au/SLS/podcasts/WkshopCL_Murphy/CorpLawWkShopHM__Pt1.mp3 </link><enclosure url="http://tls.vu.edu.au/SLS/podcasts/WkshopCL_Murphy/CorpLawWkShopHM__Pt1.mp3" length="5199445" type="audio/mpeg"/></item>

This is the code for audio file #1

Replace the blue highlighted sections with titles and descriptions appropriate to this audio file.

Replace the red urls with:First url – the full url of the page containing audio file links;Second url – the full url for the link to this audio file;Third url (section between " and ") – same as the second url

Replace the yellow highlighted number with the size (in Bytes) of this audio file. Right click on the file name & select Properties, copy the size, e.g. (5,199,445 bytes) and remove commas.

<item> <title>Corp Law Exam Prep Workshop Part 2</title><link>http://tls.vu.edu.au/SLS/podcasts/default.html</link><description>Helen Murphy's workshop on preparing for your Corporate Law exam - Part 2</description><link>http://tls.vu.edu.au/SLS/podcasts/WkshopCL_Murphy/CorpLawWkShopHM__Pt2.mp3 </link><enclosure url="http://tls.vu.edu.au/SLS/podcasts/WkshopCL_Murphy/CorpLawWkShopHM__Pt2.mp3" length="5392124" type="audio/mpeg"/></item>

This is the code for audio file #2

See above for editing instructions

For more audio files, just add another block of code between <item> and </item> tags.

Always finish with the code on the bottom row.

</channel></rss> Do not edit this section.

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Check your RSS Feed!

Whether you use your own server or Blogger, it's not a bad idea to test your feed with www.feedvalidator.org once you have it set up.

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7.6 Set up your podcatcher

Podcast catcher software (podcatcher software) is used by those who wish to receive your podcasts. Its purpose is to regularly check your site to see if your channel has been updated. If there is new material, that audio file will be automatically downloaded and copied onto the user's iPod (if they have one). Users may still listen to the file on their computer if they do not own an iPod.

As you will need to test that your podcast is working, you also need to install podcatcher software on your computer.

One of the most common (and popular) podcatchers is iTunes, but many others will also do the job:

iTunes (Windows / Mac OS X) - http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/ Juice (Windows / Mac OS X / Linux) -

http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net/index.php iPodder (Windows) - http://www.jpodder.com iPodderX (Mac OS X) - http://ipodderx.com Odeo (Windows / Mac OS X / Linux) - http://odeo.com

You might also wish to explore the Podcatcher comparison site for side-by-side reviews of all podcasting software.

Once you have downloaded and installed the software, choose the podcasts in which you are interested. The software will automatically check for updates or RSS feeds (if the podcast is part of a series or subscription) and download the podcast files to your computer.

Subscribe to a new podcast (such as the one you have just created) by dragging the URL of the xml file into your podcast playlist, or by typing the URL into "Subscribe to Podcast" under the Advanced menu.

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7.7 Promote your podcast

Give your learners the url for the xml file pointing to your podcast. You can use email, or just include it on a webpage like this. Once learners subscribe, the podcasting process is complete.

However, if you are trying to reach a wider audience, you need to promote your work by using services like feedburner.com, podcastalley.com, podcast.net or ipodderx.com to advertise your site to the world.

If you're not ready for the known universe to start listening to your productions, just tell your friends where to find your podcast (.xml) file.

7.8 Resources on podcasts and podcasting

Podcasting in Educationhttp://www.apple.com/education/products/ipod/podcasting.html

Learninginhandhttp://www.learninginhand.com/podcasting/

Power to Learn - Teaching with Technology Article series

A Podcast Primer on the 'Power to Learn' site

Quick Podcasting (Doc)

Creating Your Own Podcast (Doc)

iTunes Podcasting Infohttp://www.apple.com/itunes/store/podcaststechspecs.html

Where can I find audio materials online?Look at sites like Audible.com - you will find thousands of books available, plus study guides, book notes, vocabulary builders, and test prep materials available - some with free sample downloads.

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8. Web 2.0 References

Bandura, A. 1977, Social Learning Theory, Prentice Hall, USA.

Bartlett-Bragg, A. 2006, "Reflections on pedagogy: Reframing practice to foster informal learning with social software", Informal Learning and Digital Media conference, 21 - 23 September, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark.

Baumgartner, P., 2004,’The Zen Art of Teaching – Communication and Interactions in eEducation’, Internal Workshop ICL2004, Kassel University Press, Villach, Austria.

Blackall, L., 2005, ‘Digital literacy: how it affects teaching practices and networked learning futures – a proposal for action research’, The Knowledge Tree, Edition 7, October.

Cook, T., 2006, Social Media,

Downes, S., 2005, ‘E-learning 2.0’, eLearn Magazine, October

Educause Learning Initiative: 7 Things You Should Know About... Series

Mejias, U., 2005, ‘A Nomad’s Guide to Learning and Social Software’, The Knowledge Tree, Edition 7, October