Web 2.0

Web 2.0 has been defined as an interactive online medium where collaboration and innovation meet to build a network of professional and recreational communities. In other words you can create, edit, and publish material in an online format that is ubiquitious, malleable, and is rather easy to do. Examples of social software applications or Web 2.0 are Blogger, MySpace, Facebook and the recently written about Ask Colorado; all of them harness this unique technique.

Since its inception, there have been a good number of us that feel like Ansgar in this video, without the hairdo of course. Terms like "digital native" or the "net generation" is more common in research about today's student in higher education and how to engage with this diverse student population. Students are comfortable with this medium.

Teaching in an online environment is prevalent on campus as well as off. Asynchronous learning or distance education is now an avenue in which college campuses teach around the world. The world of multimedia learning helps educators adopt new means of communication and to push content to users.

So why would a library be so inclined to use a Wiki as an intranet or a means of communication? Or use an online chat service like Meebo as a reference desk? Why would the discipline of nursing education want to use something as entertaining as video sharing website YouTube to push content to its users? (Skiba, 2007) The answer is simple. It is everywhere and a good number of people are using it. These Web 2.0 tools are being used to transform not only the entertainment industry but how we get our information, how we educate our students (Teacher Tube), how we exchange ideas, and in the words of Thomas Friedman, make the world flat.

The idea behind Web 2.0 is community and collaboration. The Internet is filled with user generated content. It is the user that is making videos, writing blogs, constructing websites and sometimes reporting on news that mainstream media misses. Anyway you look at it, the users are in control of what they want to see, hear, read, watch, and contribute. Taken from the Pew Internet/American Life Project (2007) statistics show that 64% of online teens use social networking sites. Whether the purpose behind these statistics is recreational use or educational, the student uses this technology almost exclusively and daily.
-Paul

Skiba, D. (2007). Nursing education 2.0: You Tube. Nursing Education Perspectives, 28(2), 100-102.