I’ll be presenting to a group of ed tech educators here in Raleigh/Wake County later today about Web 2.0., and then taking it on the road as a workshop next week at Pennsylvannia’s ed tech conference, PETE & C.
I’d like to work through some of the underlying concepts that I see as being unique to these new tools. Here are a few. Please comment or add as you see fit.
- Valuable content is increasingly rising out of an ongoing and growing conversation.
- The organization and flow of information increasingly depends on the behavior of the people who use it.
- People are beginning to dynamically connect with each other through their content.
- Traditionally, information flowed in one or two directions. Through the new Web, content flows in a variety of directions that depend on the behavior of those who produce the information and those who use it.
- Through Web 2.0 new information constructs are possible — interactive and community contributed documents that tie in with dynamic and independent digital libraries of web resources, and the more formally published ideas of thinkers and journalists in the field — and none of these people need know each other.
There are a couple of foundational concepts that really drive the rest of the list.
One, the tools to do this are free or nearly free. (In technological societies, that is. Keep in mind a LOT of people on this planet have never made a telephone call, much less started a blog!)
Two, the tools are very easy to use. The combination makes the barrier to entry extremely low.
Three, the feedback loop is very short. You get near-instantaneous reaction.
However – and this is a big however – no one is GUARANTEED an audience.