Learning through Web 2.0 - a user-generated course?

[PeterT]

A group of folk are thinking about developing a course about learning supported by Web 2.0 technologies - not sure how this will pan out - but could be fun/useful ...

Feel free to join in - discussing what the course should include in here and/or editing the course in the wiki.   

[An¡mus]

What are web 2.0 technologies?

[Fox Phlox]

Feel free to join in - discussing what the course should include in here and/or editing

Have you seen Tony Hirst's un-course on gaming and game design? That's very Web 2.0
http://digitalworlds.wordpress.com/

In answer to Animus:
I think Web 2.0 technologies are the interactive online experiences in which the readers are also the authors. You don't just consume the content, you also create the content (and vice versa).

[Marsbar9 Schomer]

So Second Life is a Web 2.0 technology?

[Fox Phlox]

Yup. As are the wiki and the Forum, and MySpace, and FaceBook and Twitter and Bebo and Flickr, and chunks of Amazon...

[Decimus Schomer]

Yup. As are the wiki and the Forum, and MySpace, and FaceBook and Twitter and Bebo and Flickr, and chunks of Amazon...

As is, for that matter, nearly anything which is non-static content, though not *all* of that.

[An¡mus]

Would search engines be one? Coz in effect, if you create a website and it picks up on it, you are creating content

[PeterT]

Would search engines be one? Coz in effect, if you create a website and it picks up on it, you are creating content

Interesting question.

I think I wouldn't count a search engine as web 2.0 - but finding it hard to justify why. Started to say it was to do with search engines not using the power of the community/users to enhance the experience (cos there is something about Web 2.0 in my mind which is about releasing the power of the networked community) but of course good search engines do do that in the background (I think).

[Marko Schomer]

Would search engines be one? Coz in effect, if you create a website and it picks up on it, you are creating content

Some search engines are certainly web 2.0, as they are developed collaboratively, with the algorithms being open to edit and change. I wouldn't say the main search engines are web 2.0, because the actual content- the search algorithms- aren't open for a community to make changes to.

[An¡mus]

Okay, I didn't think they would be counted as such but wanted to raise the question.
How about non-broswer based internet types of communication, such as game console chat and online play?

[PeterT]

Okay, I didn't think they would be counted as such but wanted to raise the question.
How about non-broswer based internet types of communication, such as game console chat and online play?

I would have thought that anything that used the internet in a way that allows users to be contributors as well as consumers would count as Web 2.0 - in which case chat and online play (multiplayer games) would count as Web 2.0 ... (but ready for someone to tell me they disagree ...)

[kimberly]

I have attached a table from Trinder et.al. (2008) on typology of web 2.0 technologies.
Are there others which are not in this table?

One of the points made by Trinder et.al. is that students (and teachers) have a lot of expertise in using these technologies for social networking, or buying and selling, but are inexperienced in applying them to learning/academic contexts. 
What do others think? 
Kimberly   

[PeterT]

I have attached a table from Trinder et.al. (2008) on typology of web 2.0 technologies.
Are there others which are not in this table?

One of the points made by Trinder et.al. is that students (and teachers) have a lot of expertise in using these technologies for social networking, or buying and selling, but are inexperienced in applying them to learning/academic contexts. 
What do others think? 
Kimberly   

ooo - he lists blikis - great minds think alike cos I started calling our blogs in the wiki blikis a couple of years back! 

Where would he locate things like uTube?

I would distinguish between what I call Open Virtual Worlds (OVRs) like Second Life and other multi-user virtual worlds (like World of Warcraft) which for the sake of simplicity we might call Closed Virtual Worlds (CVRs) or more accurately Restricted Virtual Worlds (RVRs) - there are two important distinctions it seems to me to be made between OVRs and RVRs:

• RVRs generally have goals/missions - you know what a success state is and you can see what progression through the 'game' would look like (often quite explicitly though moving up levels). OVRs have no explicit/inbuilt purpose - like real life they are pointless until you (or someone else) overlays a purpose on them. So RVRs are games whereas OVRs are not (though of course you can behave in both environments in ways which undermine the designers intentions!)
• RVRs are restricted in the sense that everything you can create is pre-scripted - you are restricted in the things that you can create and indeed do within the environment. OVRs are open in the sense that these restrictions do not apply - you can use the building and scripting tools provided to do anything you wish (within the constraints of your own expertise in using the tools and the limitations of the tools themselves).

Where would things like uTube go?
Where would things like Google Docs go?
Would Flashmeeting or Skype fit into the definition of Web 2.0?

It is interesting that his examples don't include FaceBook.
Where would Amazon fit?

Hmm - lots of questions ...

Maybe we should create a page in the wiki with an alternative (extended) classification ... (sorry I couldn't resist) 

[Fox Phlox]

I'll contact Kathy [trinder] and ask her...

[kimberly]

Trinder is a she...not a he...

Facebook: relationship management?
Skype: discourse facilitation?
Google docs: content management?
Amazon: online bidding (buying-selling)?
U-tube: distribution system ??