Ed Tech Talk

Web 2.0 — Is It Something New or Something Better?

I recently attended a social collaboration conference outside of Detroit, Mich. I've read with interest, and sometimes in painful detail, about Web 2.0. What exactly is it and how does it work with our students, teachers and administrators?

Web 2.0 is not really anything radically new, but it is a new way of looking at the Web. Instead of browsing the Web and having a one-way connection to all the resources that it offers, Web 2.0 relates to applications that are technically and collaboratively rich.

I learned that Web 2.0 is a group of applications that increase the collaborative power of the Web. Blogs and wikis are collaborative environments — blogs being online journals and wikis being Web pages that allow all collaborators to edit the online materials and work together.

YouTube, for example, is an online Web video application. MySpace and Facebook also fall under the Web 2.0 umbrella of applications.

Web 2.0 — and its accompanying applications — are changing the way we collaborate and communicate through the Web. It provides applications that allow users to collaborate online on projects from start to finish. I can't wait to see what Web 3.0 will show us next!

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