I’m involved in a short-term international study of the use of Web 2.0 technologies in teaching, learning, support and administration. This study is collecting evidence, in the form of case studies, of the use of Web 2.0 in higher education in the UK, Australia, USA, South Africa and the Netherlands. This study, which is being coordinated by Tom Franklin, will be informed by an online questionnaire which is now available.
If you have been using Web 2.0 in these areas I would be very grateful if you would complete the survey. It should take around 20 – 30 minutes to complete the survey. If you leave your email address you will be sent the draft report for comment and final report.
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I had a look at the questionnaire, and I’m sorry… it’s pants.
Web 2.0 is NOT Blogs, Wikis, and Social Networks:
Blogs are simple submission forms, a variation on the “Guestbook” if you like.
Wikis are clever submission forms combined with Content Versioning Systems.
Social Networks are a combination of Blog- and Wiki-concepts.
Web 2.0, if it is anything, is the use of the underlying technologies of ECMASript and manipulation of the Document Object Model (the (x)html of the web page).
2.1) My role: Software Engineer
2.2) The technologies I use: ECMASript, Java, Perl, XSLT, XPath
2.3) How do I use the technologies: m2m dynamic lookups; hide/show parts of web pages; pre-submission form validation.
2.6) Is the technology essential: No (and it should never be so)
3.1) The drivers: to assist the user, to provide more fluid functionality
3.2) The barriers: making sure the core functionality is available to all users, without discrimination.
3.4) Main Disadvantages: “Management” not understanding the difference between marketing hype and real technology – as witnessed by this questionnaire.
4.3) Where do I work: for a JISC Data provider.
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Web 2.0 is widely regarded as covering technologies such as blogs, wikis and scoial networks. See, for example, Wikipedia’s description:
“Web 2.0 is a term describing the trend in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aims to enhance creativity, information sharing, and, most notably, collaboration among users. These concepts have led to the development and evolution of web-based communities and hosted services, such as social-networking sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies.”
Web 2.0 is not a descriptor for technologies, code gorilla – sorry. Web 2.0 according to the man involved in its inception is a concept enveloping the interactive web [2.0] – which includes blogs, wikis and SN – rather than the read only web [1.0]. The technologies you have described are merely cogs in the engine of web 2.0.