Web 2.0 – What is it and How Can You Leverage on it?

Perry TanPerry_tan@cscollege.gov.sgperrytan@hotmail.comManager / Senior SpecialistOpen Academy

Presenter Bio•e-Learning Specialist

•e-Learning content development

•e-Learning implementation

•e-Learning/Learning technology evaluation & implementation

•Education

•Master of Science in Instructional Technology, Utah State University, US

•Experience

•Civil Service College, Singapore

•University of California, Irvine, US

•Independent Consultant

Open Academy

•Established in 2001

•One-stop e-Learning platform for the Singapore public service

•Core services

•Generic titles (300+ titles)

•Hosting of e-Learning courses (LMS)

•Development of customised titles

•Provides learning technology support

•OA’s e-Learning models:

•Standalone

•Blended

What the Heck is Web 2.0 (a.k.a. New Media)?

"Web 2.0 is a knowledge-oriented environment where human interactions generate content that is published, managed and used through network applications in a service-oriented architecture."

"Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the Internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform."

What is Web 2.0? A Shift In Paradigm

Web 2.0 – What is it?

•Blogs

•RSS

•Wikis

•File Sharing – Flickr, YouTube, etc

•Online Social Networking

•Open Source

•Open Courseware

Web 2.0 – Blogs

•An online diary/webpage

•Easy to build

•Free

•Anyone and everyone can have a voice!

•Everyone can comment - engagement

•Power of linking and word of mouth - RSS

•Blogs vs. “Mainstream” media

•Legitimacy of content?

•Technorati

•Services – Blogger, Wordpress, Livejournal

Mr Brown

Xiaxue

Web 2.0 – RSS

•RSS – Really Simple Syndication

•Content Aggregator (Reader)

•Blogs

•Online Services (My Yahoo & Windows Live)

Web 2.0 – Wiki

•Started in 2001

•Consolidates content from users – you and me!

•Anyone can add & edit

•Wikipedia

•LearnWiki www.learnwiki.org

Web 2.0 – Image Sharing - Flickr

•One of earliest Web 2.0 applications

•Holds 2 billion images

•Used extensively by bloggers to store images

•User access control

•Metadata and tagging

Web 2.0 – Video Sharing - YouTube

•65,000 videos added everyday

•100 million views everyday!

•Sold to Google at US$1.65 billion (!!!) in Nov 2006

•Used for US Presidential Debate

•Copyright breach?

•Marketing tool

•Example

•Tip!

•Downloading Google videos

•Download FLV file at http://keepvid.com/

•VLC Media player http://www.videolan.org/

Web 2.0 – Online Social Networking

•MySpace:

•Sold to News Corp for US$280 million in July 2005

•Over 100 million accounts and over 230,000 registrations per day

•Facebook:

•Created by Mark Zuckerberg

•34 million active members

•Rejected buyover bids of US$1 billion in Sep 2006

•Others: Friendster, LinkedIn

•Social & professional networking/communication

•Biggest “corporate time waster”?

Web 2.0 – OpenSource

•Proprietary vs. Shareware vs. OpenSource

•OpenSource movement:

•Linux

•Open Office

•MediaWiki

•Moodle (LMS)

Backbone of e-Learning - LMS

•LMS = Learning Management System

•Platform for asynchronous interaction & class logistics

•Virtual classroom

•Restricted access

•Access e-learning courseware

•Tracking

•Organises learners into classes

•Discussion forums

•Quizzes

•Sharing of resources

•Download / upload of assignments

Web 2.0 – OpenCourseWare

•Idea conceived in 1999 – Objective: to best position MIT for the e-learning environment

•Started by MIT in 2002 www.ocw.edu

•Attempt to put course materials online, for free public access

•18,000 courses online

•Some courses contain full textbooks written by MIT faculty and streaming video lectures

•Spawned the OCW Consortium

•http://www.ocwconsortium.org/

How Did Web 2.0 Change Things?•Content

•Central Dissemination vs. User-Generated (dynamic & democratic)

•Authority vs. Consensus

•Information explosion! (search & categorisation important)

•Convergence of Media on the Internet

•News, Books, Telephone (skype), Music, TV (IP TV)

•Change in methods/preference in socialisation/learning

•Everything becomes more “Open” – Copyright becomes blurred

•Openness vs. Protection – to share or not to share?

•Focus shifted from technology to how people uses the technology

Leveraging on Web 2.0 for Educational & Training Purposes

•Use New Media (Youtube, Flickr, wikipedia, RSS feeds) as resources

•Wikis

• For creation of knowledge base

• Eg. student project

•Blogs as essay/journal assignment tool

•Create online social communities (CoPs) using Facebook, etc

•Hire instructional/educational technologists or train teachers to leverage on technology

What Does it Mean for Education / Training?

•Web 2.0 enables everyone to create (learning) content

•Web 2.0 facilitates peer-to-peer and bottom-up learning

•Sharing results in win-win (requires a sharing mindset!)

•Barriers to sharing – protectiveness and “deference to authority”

•Strategic: Building content repository with search & categorisation capability for user-created content

•Shift in instructional / pedagogy design?

•Content centric Application/Context Centric?

Leverage on Web 2.0!

•Be in-tune with latest web trends (social trend?) for both social & professional purposes

•“Socialise” and network online – create profiles and CoPs

•Bridge the Generation Gap (aptitude or attitude barrier?)

•Learn the technology, ADOPT THE MINDSET & JUST DO IT!

So… What the Heck is Web 2.0?

"Web 2.0 is a knowledge-oriented environment where human interactions generate content that is published, managed and used through network applications in a service-oriented architecture."

"Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the Internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform."

Web 2.0 is an evolution in the Internet where the focus shifts from centrally created content to user-generated content.

Is it so difficult?

Thank You!