Web 2.0 (Blogs, RSS, and Social Bookmarks) and implications for Higher Education

Abstract: Web 2.0: A New Wave of Innovation for Teaching and Learning? Web 2.0 maybe a misleading title, the elements of RSS, Blogs, and Social Bookmarks are defining a new course on "digital writing".

Author: Bryan Alexander
Date: Educause March/April 2006

Takeway:

Web 2.0’s lowered barrier to entry may influence a variety of cultural forms with powerful implications for education, from storytelling to classroom teaching to individual learning. It is much simpler to set up a del.icio.us tag for a topic one wants to pursue or to spin off a blog or blog departmental topic than it is to physically meet co-learners and experts in a classroom or even to track down a professor. Starting a wiki-level text entry is far easier than beginning an article or book. What new, natively digital textual forms are impending as small-scale production scales up? “Web 1.0” has already demonstrated immense powers for connecting learners, teachers, and materials. How much more broadly will this connective matrix grow under the impact of the openness, ease of entry, and social nature of Web 2.0? How can higher education respond, when it offers a complex, contradictory mix of openness and restriction, public engagement and cloistering? How do we respond to the possibilities of what some call “E-learning 2.0,” based on environments, microcontent, and networking?

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