Thing 2 Web 2.0.... or web 3.0?

Web 2.0 is such a bizarre concept for people to wrap their brains around. In essence, teachers have been doing this for generations, just not formally. Because something is on the Web, it takes on a strange quality of being difficult and so different that "we will never learn that".

What I mean is that in a school, teachers are creating new lessons, activities and curricular ideas and willingly sharing them with other teachers in their school or district. This is probably because of the limits to communication. What teachers were not doing were adding to the glorified and honorable text book. There has always been the feeling that what is said between those two hard covers is sacrosanct.

In the 90's there were a few people that were on the cutting edge of web 2.0 stuff. But really the web became a place for people to "share" with one another. To access information never thought possible. As soon as that teacher posted a lesson for other teachers to use. Like in their school, they were contributing to the whole. This time, however, the whole is made up of anyone in the world with access to a computer and a phone line.

Again, technology explodes faster than the average human can keep up. I, a self described tech geek, am often shown new web pages and tech tricks every day. There is just too much to know.

So, the advent of Ebay and Craigs list take what was once the Garage Sale and open it up to the world and more importantly... make it easy to find because the items you are looking for or are posting are automatically databased. Thus you no longer have to read through 75 car ads in the newspaper to find a 2002 Honda Accord. You just go to Cars.com or Craigs list and type in "Honda Accord". Tada! you got it.

Then came the behemoth Wikipedia. Despite its obvious faults, it is an amazing experiment on the web on human knowledge and condition. There was a TON of fictional info about certain topics for many years, but as Wikipedia learned there was more and more filtering and monitoring going on creating a remarkably accurate system. Generated by who? The common user. The real genius is not the information contained within Wikipedia, but the concept of a Wiki.

Some people are so enamored with Wikis that they are not being used proper. Wikis are only to be used when you want a large number of people to contribute to a final product. As shown by such wonderful spin-offs like:

• Adobe Labs cut 1/2 of their support staff and just created a wiki. You have problems with an Adobe product. Not sure how to effectively use layers in photoshop? Check out this page.
• Trip Advisor is a wiki put together by world travelers. Don't follow some guide that might get a kickback by Hotel x or y. what happens if the last travel guide was written 3 years ago? This is the place that will let you know what to look out for, where to eat and the hidden gems.
• wikimapia This is a map feature that is just beginning where you can type in info about geographical features.
• Wikihow is my favorite. it is the average person telling people how to... from how to make a mask out of tinfoil to changing the corroborator in your car. It totally rocks.
  

I guess this diatribe was to extol the virtues of how easy it is to contribute to the global community. To interact. In fact, the epitome of white tower knowledge, the Encyclopedia Brittanica is opening up a Wiki to add to their already very competent pages. Unlike Wikipedia, all the content will be read and edited before any changes are made.



I would like to note that I have not talked about blogging in regards to "live Joural, My space, Facebook etc." In that these are more private chat areas. Where as general Blogs (I.E. discussions about a news article) give instantaneous feedback and discourse on a specific topic. Thus the advent of blogs to sites like the New York Times, NPR etc. is awesome. Even many Blogger sites are open to the public and work wonderfully.

I belong to a number of Blogs where the discussions have lasted for days in an A-synchronous chat. It has been fabulous. My students love using Bogs as a forum for debate outside of the classroom.

What this is pointing back to are two main features:
1. The necessity for the Text book is next to nothing (i haven't used one in 10 years)
2. there are some standards on the web... once you learn how to do one thing, you can apply the same basic technique to other programs and the learning curve is quite fast. So interacting with the world is not only easy, but the fear factor is misplaced. There is no nasty rejection letter from an editor.

So, with the marrying of technology like:
Blogs,
Wikis
chat rooms
traditional searches
podcasts
Video
with the standard classroom one can create a very dynamic setting that the kids have a full hand in helping create. Learning is far more the way Dewy would have preferred. Kids are doing and while doing are learning. For, in the future computers are not going away and thus proficiency key.


taking technology to the next level. Since the advent of programs like Skype and oovoo VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) is a reality. We can have free long distance calls with video and at the same time be sending documents and files back and forth.

there is also Webtv and other communication tools. The merger of animated and/or scripted communication rather than with real people. Is this the danger that befalls society? Continually the weakness of western civilization has been the over exertion of technology and resources with out first mastering what came before. The real wisdom of 1st nation peoples is that they mastered social interaction and interpersonal skills. They had a VERY high emotional Intelligence. Although "civilization" conquered those people physically. Will our own advancement be our demise?

Remember more than 50% of communication is non-verbal. one of the most important issues to human development long into adulthood is human touch. Can we really supplant that with vast banks of computers? Or will we take a step back and recognize the awesomeness of being able to take a class on Chinese and in the class talk with and see Chinese students who are studying English. But then realize when that awesomeness is over, a good beer and the breaking of bread with friends and family will always be more important to the human condition than anything the computer can give us.

with that I say lets see what else we can develop but keep the human spirit pure.