Web 2.0 – Respecting Learning Communities
By David Warlick
Director & Principal Consultant, The Landmark Project
The Internet began as a place for conversation, where people exchanged e-mail messages and engaged in discussions using mailing lists (most frequently called listservs). In 1993, an undergraduate student, Marc Andreessen, created Mosaic, the first graphical web browser. Mosaic and later arrivals, Netscape and Internet Explorer, attracted droves of people to the Internet, but not so much to collaborate as to browse and consume information. The Internet had shifted from coffee shop to library.
In 1999, the pendulum began its gravitational swing back in the other direction, with Pyra Labs’ introduction of Blogger, the first blogging service which was free and easy to set up and use. Almost overnight, executives, journalists, kids, and senior citizens, the wealthy and the homeless were blogging (weblogging) to the world. The Internet became a conversation again, as people were observing their experiences, reflecting on them, reporting them through their blogs, and then engaging in conversations with comments and linked blog articles.
Web 2.0 was born, a family of new applications that made the digital information landscape far more participatory. Other tools included:
One of the highlights of Web 2.0 is Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia that uses a wiki to give anyone the ability to add and edit topic articles. Regardless of the open nature of this information source, it has proven to be extraordinarily accurate.
For learners, especially those with diverse learning styles, Web 2.0 has enormous value, in that it respects the community. Web 2.0 applications in the classroom respect the learner as a participant in their education, where students are asked to write formal blogs about the books they’ve read, scientific experiments they have conducted, research into health issues, and applications of mathematical operations – and then they engage in conversations, not just with the teacher, but also with their classmates. Publishing and discussing blogs, participating in wiki documents, publishing podcasts, and contributing to social networks all empower learners and then respect that power.
For more information and resources around 21st Century Learning and Technology visit The Landmark Project.
David Warlick has been a Featured Presenter at a number of TRLD conferences. Choose from 4 sessions at TRLD 2008 to hear more about Web 2.0 in the classroom.