Web2 education technologies

Hi Folks

Below are a few notes on a few web2 platform technologies that can be used in webducation. Alot of this is mainstream in the public web domain but I'd be interested in hearing from educators who have used some of these technologies.

Podcasting: As the craze that is iPod has grown, so has the terminology that surrounds it. Podcasting is an iPod word for downloading audio files. Even BBC Radio is in on the act. The good news is that it is easy to get involved and make your own MP3 audio files.

Take a look at the Wikipedia entry on Podcasting

The BBC is a great place to start if you want to start down loading topical Podcasts.

Folksonomy

A "folksonomy" is a collaboratively generated, open-ended labelling system that enables Internet users (learners) to categorize content, online photographs, web pages & links. The freely chosen labels -- called tags -- help to improve search engine effectiveness because content is categorized using a familiar, accessible, and shared vocabulary. The labelling process is called tagging.

Folksonomy creation and searching tools are not part of the underlying World Wide Web protocols. Folksonomies arise in Web-based communities where special provisions are made at the site level for creating and using tags. These communities are established to enable Web users to label and share user-generated content, such as photographs, or to collaboratively label existing content, such as Web sites, books, works in the scientific and scholarly literatures, and blog entries.

Because folksonomies develop in Internet-mediated social environments, users can discover (generally) who created a given folksonomy tag, and see the other tags that this person created. In this way, folksonomy users often discover the tag sets of another user who tends to interpret and tag content in a way that makes sense to them. The result, often, is an immediate and rewarding gain in the user's capacity to find related content.

Delicious (http://del.icio.us/) is an example of this.

RSS

RSS stands for Realy simple syndication, this is an xml technology that enables users (subscribers) to keep up to date with the information you want. This could be another subject related upload i.e. web2 learning blog, pod cast or any configured data stream.

RSS allows the subscriber to see instantly when a site, group or individual has published new content; thereby saving the user to remember to visit the site regularly. In short, RSS takes the hassle out of staying up to date, by showing you the very latest information that you’re interested in.

Again, check out the BBC site to experiment with subscribing to RSS feeds.

Flickr

Flickr is an online photographic forum that enables users to manage and share their favorite images globally.

Web2 and education: Where do I start?

My first port of call in getting to grips with the concept of what web2 is the O'Reilly publishing company. This really helped in getting a perspective on what this term meant then a few Googles later a brief comment on learning & web2 helped get a understanding of the range of new terms concept mapping, learning is an ecology and mash ups; don’t you just love jargon (nope)?

My final recent golden nugget regarding web2 and education (UK based) is A Critique on BECTA’s policy on learning platforms by Crispin Weston of Alpha Learning; This is a very read-able statement of where we are in the UK in regard to some of the hard ware and compliance necessary for Web2 to succeed.

If anyone has any additional references regarding standards compliance re. web2 or general web2 educational tools drop me a line.

My next blog will list a few of the usual suspects for use in web2 education i.e Wikis, del.icio.us, blogs, RSS, podcasting, folksonomies, Flickr etc..

If anyone is currently using these in educational projects (either in compulsory or post compulsory education) post your ideas.

Cheers