Web 2.0: Why It's Good for You: What is Web 2.0?

Web 2.0 is the second generation of the internet - it allows users to share, converge, communicate, collaborate and design through websites. These include social networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Bebo, Flickr and Hi5. It also has video sharing sites such as YouTube where people around the world can upload and stream video, and Hulu where users can watch episodes of their favourite TV shows online. Web 2.0 includes interactive games, that allows people to play against other people worldwide. Australian pop queen,Kylie Minogue has even used web 2.0 to create her own social networking site called kyliekonnect so her fans can interact with eachother.

Web 2.0 has alot of educational value and this generation of internet has created something called e-learning. Sites like babbel.com help users learn different languages while creating a platform for users to communicate with people who know the same language across the world. Titatok.com is a website that uploads kids stories and illustrations and gets it ready for publication. There are many study group sites like WePapers.com that lets students talk to each other about work, and "collects and organizes student-generated academic papers that could help millions of students around the world." These are just a small preview of what Web 2.0 has to offer to education, and we believe that it should be used around school to improve and enhance student learning at OSC.

Process Journal

13 March 2009
Today we were introduced to our new unit on Web 2.0. We were told that we were in groups for this unit so we got together (Tara, Dylan and Maria) and read what the aim of the unit was. As this unit was very different from the others we have done, because it is on a blog and not on MS word, there we had a Q&A session till the end of class.

18 March 2009
We started on our blog today, we decided to use blogger.com as our platform and we chose our layout etc. We then wrote the introduction to our unit. We still weren't sure whether our blog was our design cycle, or whether we uploaded our design cycle to the blog and our blog was our create. So we had to confirm it with Ms. Paulenne and Mr. Smith. We also posted an entry on our blog about what Web 2.0 was, and also commented about its educational value. This took quite a while because we had to research about what Web 2.0 was in the first place, and in the end we managed to write a comprehensive definition.

19 March 2009
Today our group had a little bit of an argument, which is normally what happens in group work. Tara's impression was that we had to upload or link our design cycle onto the blog, and Dylan thought that the blog was our design cycle. Because there were many different opinions from our peers, we decided to solve this and be proactive and do both, so today we transfered some of what we wrote on our blog onto a word document.

20 March 2009
We continued on our word document today, and managed to add our AOI links, and guiding questions on it. We also found a little comic strip about Web 2.0 that we posted on our blog to add some color and comic relief.

25 March 2009
Today, we were in a bit of a dilemma. Tara was absent and she had the password to our blog as it was on her account, as well as the word design cycle. Dylan and Maria realized the importance of communication in a group, as we couldnt contact her. Nonetheless, we spent the rest of the class researching about the history of Web 2.0 so that we could post it as soon as Tara gets back.

26 March 2009
Today Tara was still absent but luckily we got the password to our blog from her. We decided to create a timeline to illustrate the history of Web 2.0, and what better way to do this but by using a Web 2.0 tool! We found an interesting look website called capzles which made timelines and we started putting ours together. As this was our first time on the site, it took us a bit of time to figure out how to work it so we didnt finish. But the timeline was looking good!

27 March 2009
We finished working on our timeline with Capzles.com and put it into our blog. At first this did not work, so we were quite worried that something was wrong. But finally we embeded it into the blog. On the downside however this took up alot of time, but we also managed to create a survey for the teachers of OSC to see what they thought about Web 2.0. We alsi decided that one of the most important aspects of our blog was how it looked (presentation and layout) because no one wants to read something that looks drab. We spent the lesson searching through layouts and finally found one that we liked, which added more drama to our blog than the old layout. It tooks us some time to figure out how to upload the style but once we did it was worth it!

2 April 2009
Today, we decided to use Google Docs, to present some Web 2.0 tools because we thought it would be a different medium of doing so. Unfortunately we had some problems accessing our google docs, and this wasnt very good because we were running out of time. We published our Google docs powerpoint on our blog, and in addition to this we used LovelyCharts.com to create a brainstorm relating the AOI's to this unit and to Web 2.0. This took up some time but in the end it was worth it because it clearly explained how the AOI's linked to the unit which is an important aspect of Web 2.0. We decided that THE BEST WAY TO TEST OUR PRODUCT was to create a blogger poll online to see if people believed that our blog convinced them that Web 2.0 is an educational tool. If we get alot of positive responses, then that means that this unit and our aim were a sucess! We also decided to finish up our investigation, so we wrote down our design brief and design spec. Then we started on the Design portion of our DC and managed to get about half of it done. We were very pleased with the work we achieved this lesson.

3 April 2009
Today we started our design: we managed to finish writing our first two ideas and compare them with our design spec.

8 April 2009
Today we wrote our final design and we chose to choose our idea of making a video because it was interactive and engaged the viewver. we then justified our choice. After this we uploaded our design onto the blog using Scribd. We were very pleased because we managed to finish our design before the April Break.

20 April 2009
Today we split the work to get more done: Tara wrote a plan on word mapping our or use of resources briefly through time and Dylan created a Gantt Chart on excel which had more detail. In the end we managed to create and evaluate our plan all in one lesson.

22 April 2009
Today we started our Create process - we wrote the script for out video which took quite a while. Because we were using Scribd alot, we decided to post our script directly as an entry to our blog.

25 April 2009
We put our video together today on Moviemaker which was the only video-editinf software available to us in school. As we couldnt upload the video to YouTube in school, we waited till we got home, uploaded it onto Youtube and then embedded it on our blog.

27 April 2009
Today we started answering our Essential Questions as part of our Evaluate.

29 April 2009
We continued on our Essential Questions today and managed to finish what we were doing.

Works Cited

Web 2.0: Why It's Good for You

What is Web 2.0?

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Has this blog convinced you that Web 2.0 is a valuable educational resource?

Process Journal

Interesting Web 2.0 Sites

Works Cited