What is Web 2.0?
Web 2.0 is a trend in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aims to facilitate creativity, information sharing, and collaboration between 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 (collaborative tagging, social classification, social indexing). ('Web 2.0', 2014).
The internet is considered a powerful tool nowadays because it facilitates communication. "The world wide web contains unimaginable amounts of information. Some of it is incorrect, some of it is out of date, some of it is not relevant, but some of it is of a high quality and generously shared by its originator with the worldwide online community." Allen et. al (2012, p. 193-194).
Web 2.0 in the classroom!
There are many advantages of using Social Software in the classroom:
- it is free;
- it is available anywhere and anytime as long as there is internet connection;
- it provides new ways of accessing, thinking about, sharing and using information;
- can offer effective learning and sharing platform;
- can show a real world, meaningful, enjoyable and relevant.
However, there are a lot of disadvantages of using Web 2.0:
- too much information is posted by many people with different thoughts;
- if they are not supervised children can easily find inappropriate online information;
- privacy issues.
Therefore, it is highly important that all children receive E-Safety advice from parents and schools!!!
Web 2.0 Applications
Wallwisher is and online application which allows creating walls where the users involved can post their thoughts, feelings and ideas in regards to a certain subject (the title of the post). The website can be found at:
Children enjoy being able to freely express themselves and this application can successfully offer the platform. However the teachers must help, support and supervise them constantly as children tend to write things that are not related to the subject!
Wordle allows users to write words and sentences which can be displayed in an attractive and interactive way. This application is available at: http://www.wordle.net/create
Other online applications:
Prezi is available at: http://prezi.com
Pinterest is available at: http://www.pinterest.com
Reflections
This post is meant to show the importance of Web 2.0 in schools and in personal life. It seems that the opportunities for finding things online are limitless. Using internet in the classroom can be visually appealing, engaging, stimulating and challenging at the same time. Children are given the opportunity to express themselves and develop communication skills.
References:
Allen, J., Potter, J., Sharp, J. and Turvey, K. (2012) Primary ICT Knowledge, Understanding and Practice. 5th edn. London: Learning Matters/Sage.
'Web 2.0' (2014) Wikipedia. Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0 (Accessed: 21 April 2014).
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