I found my house's current value on Zillows (down 14% in the last 30 days, no surprise), checked out the social networking sites on Ning (yes, there are librarian groups there!), watched Google's video extolling the virtues of Google Docs, and surveyed the many free widgets from Your Minis
Peer Trainer wants to help me lose weight, and 43 Things wants me to list my life's goals and chart my progress. I notice that all of these sites are very easy to use, simple design, and, being web 2.0, all about collaboration. I did not understand the web design sites, but I do get that people are working together on projects on those sites and sharing information for free. It is very intriguing to see this shift from independent competition to widescale collaboration, and I wonder how long it will be before our political institutions catch up. Serendipity again. Technology and Learning just featured Web 2.0 tools in the February 08 issue, with an emphasis on engaging students through social networking. Check out this issue for links to schools which are using Web 2.0 sites such as Flickr, blogs, wikis, Skype, and Twitter to extend the classroom into cyberspace. Twitter is like sending mini-postcards throughout the day to your online "family" or "group", like, "Hey, I just got off the plane!" or "Found a great pair of shoes." Web 2.0 is all about Connection and Collaboration.
2 comments:
Think of all the lucky students who are using "Web 2.0 sites such as Flickr, blogs, wikis, Skype, and Twitter to extend the classroom into cyberspace." I hope the schools who are overly controlling (like mine) will take note and begin to loosen up a little.
I had an interesting thing happen - the Business Ed department asked for my help in putting together a syllabus for a new course called "The Information Superhighway." Since I am working on this class, I actually had some input that was useful in expanding the course beyond just internet searches.
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