On the subject of Web 2.0

Well, that was horrendous! I just had to skim 67 threads all with a lot of really interesting looking detail, and realise I must have been on Mars for the the last 10 days! I will do some catching up over the next few days but won't of course now be able to post, so will reflect on my own.

I wanted to briefly share an experience I had recently attending a conference online based in Paris called "Le Web" essentially all the big guns from the Social Software panoply were there. The usual suspects, keynotes from, Chris Anderson who brought us the marketing concept of the 'The Long Tail', Marissa Mayer one of Googles CEOs, Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library and a host more, TechCrunch, Meebo, Yahoo, Seesmic, Amazon etc etc. The form the attendance I took was

•  1: Video Streams from the conference rooms (live), these were recorded too to enable access online later, just as well as the streams kept on dropping on average the streams were holding somewhere in the region of 1400 participants at any one time.
• 2:An open livechat channel in the window frame next to the Video Stream, and
• 3: 2 twitter Channels. what one might call super buzzy! Prior to the conference I had 54 followers on Twitter afterwards, 83... now well the rise continues!

What's Twitter and who cares? I hear you say, and so what a conference online. What I'd like to contribute is that this kind of technology surrounds us now and is increasingly changing the shape and nature of our communication and learning experience.

Looking around at the kinds of technologies available, we all know there are many! The forms they take that seem to be most popular are things like Wikis, Blogs and the utilisation of Social Network sites like Beebo or Facebook. then there are the slightly more esoteric microblogging like Twitter. For business, Linkedin, commerce Amazon etc. Increasingly we are engaging in practices that even 5 years ago we would perhaps not even consider. On a recent facebook wall post, one of my 'loose' friends (I don't want to imply that he is loose in any moral respect, but I would classify as an associate rather than friend, thus is the nature of weak ties!(Granovetter 1973)) posted a link, which I share with you at the bottom of this thread that shows a snapshot of the kinds of social software available right now based on what you may use as your nickname or username, and it doesnt even include the likes of Second Life or other ARGs or MMPoRGs), 68 represented here alone. In my opinion the tools like Delicious and other aggregation and folksonomic tools are invaluable, here's one for fun but worth a look see http://www.wefeelfine.org/.

I have to agree with Mark Gamble in a thread, where he suggested that the Natives/Immigrants polarity is perhaps passé. I certainly think that technology and the use of online tools and activity has brought us culturally to a place where our futures are inevitably bound and inextricably linked to the uses of technology and all generations are involved, not too long ago and always resurfacing in the media from time to time are the tails of the 'Silversurfer', even taking the concept of 'Lifelong Learning' into the equation, learning is not just for the young. In essence all these new forms are adjuncts to the forms of communication we have all been using for millennia albeit face to face, one to one ore one to many, however perhaps it is the many to many form that technology is the parent of. I should also perhaps suggest that the use of technology seems to be democratising the learning process, although individual learning skills are varied.

We have to be clear on the fact that none of these forms will enable us to learn, that will always be in the hands of the individual and their own will. These new forms add further layers which might allow a greater propensity towards and value to a shared communication and a richer or more diverse learning experience.

 In relation to the classroom and the activities therein, and how all these new technological forms will inevitably come to play their part, we should not forget that the activity of learning, of taking in knowledge and understanding it is taken on by the individual (as previously stated), no amount of blogs or wikis will ever take the place of reading and discussion on whatever subject for the individual to learn. The function of these tools is to serve the act of knowledge appropriation, that I would suggest is all. The unfortunate parallels though lie in the concepts surrounding intelligent machines, that of course is another story that litters the cultural imagination of the twentieth century.

In the late 1960s Ivan Illich discussed the concept of Learning Webs in his book De-Schooling Society (1970). In his time seen as a maverick. Today, Mike Wesch talks about an Anti-Teaching Manifesto (2008). Both for me have a keen eye to the state of learning, both essentially defining networked experience as valuable. The best way to learn in my opinion and although this sounds obvious, is to be involved in the process, embedded if you like. The use of digital tools enables this, whether through the shared experience of a wiki or the reflections in a blog, there is an inevitability that into the future, learning and teaching and the use of technology will, for better or worse, walk hand in hand.

1. Le Web Conference 2008: http://www.lewebparis.com/

2. Ivan Illich (1970) Deschooling Society Pelican, UK.

3. Granovetter, M. (1973). "The Strength of Weak Ties" American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 78, Issue 6, May 1973, pp. 1360-1380

3. Mike Wesch (2008) Thoughts on Anti Teaching Model http://snipurl.com/7e5ll

4. Mike Wesch on Web 2.0 http://snipurl.com/91hc8

5. Facebook Wall link http://www.usernamecheck.com/

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