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The Role of Web 2.0 in Education
The advent of the internet, and in particular what we are calling Web 2.0, has so significantly changed our relationship to information and personal learning opportunities outside of formal education that we're beginning to see a set of software tools emerge that are profoundly altering both learning processes and outcomes. These tools allow us to see the start of a radical evolution in education that will bring such dramatic changes that we'll soon be at a point where we won't be able to imagine education without them.
What makes this coming transformation both so fascinating and so compellingly logical is the way in which the web has changed our personal learning opportunities. In particular, when we started to participate in creating - not just accessing - information, something amazing happened. A world emerged in which "we" (or people like us) were creators. We could start a blog; we could upload and share photos and videos; we could even build an encyclopedia.
The technology that took this amazing change and multiplied it tenfold is an underlying theme of this article, which will range across social networking, Web 2.0, the emergence of educational networking, and what I see as the first real area of significant adoption for educational networking: professional development for educators. I'd also like to briefly discuss Elluminate's LearnCentral offering, a significant new platform for professional development in education that I am involved in.
SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL NETWORKING
It's important to acknowledge up front that, while the phrase "social networking" has a history that predates the internet, for most people the term retains a specific connotation of a certain kind of website - MySpace, Facebook, and the like. Social networking sites have worried many educators (and parents) because they often bring with them outcomes that are not positive: narcissism, gossip, wasted time, "friending," hurt feelings, ruined reputations, and sometimes unsavory, even dangerous, activities. It seems likely that the phrase "social networking" carries so much baggage that it would actually impede its productive use in the context of education.
For many people, then, it may come as a surprise, that there is actually nothing inherently negative about the technology that's the basis for social networking. Social networking sites,...