Social networking tools allow users to create a profile with text, photos and other Web 2.0 applications. The idea is to link your profile to other people using the same tool, over time creating a network of people you know, and people known by the people you know. Some social networking tools allow organizations to have profiles, while others only allow individual profiles. Many social networking tools are comprised of networks based on geographic regions, workplaces, schools or interests. Within this virtual community, you can search for long-lost friends, people with the same interests, or just keep up with what your friends are doing. You can view each other’s profiles and friend lists, send email-type messages to each other, and comment on each other’s posts and photos.

Popular Online Social Networks

* Facebook – most popular with college and university students, Facebook defines itself as “a social utility that connects you with the people around you.”
* MySpace – what began as a place for independent bands to promote their concerts and music has turned into the most popular online social network in the English-speaking world!
* LinkedIn – if Facebook caters to the student crowd, LinkedIn is where you go when you graduate! LinkedIn is “an online network of more than 9 million experienced professionals from around the world, representing 130 industries.”
* Bebo – Bebo describes itself as “the next generation social networking site where members can stay in touch with their College friends, connect with friends, share photos, discover new interests and just hang out.”

These are only a few of the social networks available. Wikipedia has an extensive list of other networks, with their number of users. You are welcome to explore any of these networks, but for this exercise we are going to focus on Facebook.

Facebook began in 2005 as an electronic “facebook” for college students to look up their fellow students so they could learn a little more about them. (Remember the printed facebooks from college? You would rush to it when you saw that cute guy across the dining hall to find out his name, his high school, and other vital stats. Well, some enterprising student created an electronic one.) Facebook expanded last year to let anyone join. You still have to join as part of a network of either a school, a business, or a geographic area. Facebook is now not only still extremely popular with college students, but quickly catching on with high schoolers, giving MySpace a run for its money. Not surprisingly, this year’s SEOmoz Web 2.0 Awards named Facebook the #1 social networking tool.

Now that Facebook has opened its networks to anyone, adults-older-than-college-age are quickly adding their faces. A recent Newsweek article quotes Facebook executives claiming that “more than half its 35 million active users are not college students, and that by the end of this year less than 30 percent of Facebook users will sport college IDs.”

Discovery Resources:

View this 2 minute YouTube video, Social Networking in Plain English to get an overview of how social networking works.

AND/OR

Read some short Newsweek articles about Facebook, including a testimonial from a 40-something user and college students commenting on Why I love it and Why I hate it.

Task #17: Create a Facebook account

1. Go to Facebook‘s website.

2. Register for an account. (Click “Sign up.”)

Fill out your profile. Put as much or as little information as you want to in your profile. Only your friends can see your whole profile.

3. Add a friend. The quickest way to get a sense of what Facebook has to offer is to see how others are using it. To do that, you will need friends! Some of your ITS colleagues who already have Facebook accounts are: Annie Armour, Bryant Camp, Penny Cowan, Mike Forster, Jan Green, Kevin Reynolds, Vicki Sells, Donna Stratton, Heidi Syler, David Syler, and Pat Thompson.

To add a friend:
1. In the upper left-hand corner of the Facebook screen, type a person’s name in the search box.

2. Next to my profile, click on Add to Friends. This is not an instantaneous process. The people you added will get a message in their inbox notifying them that you want to add them as your friend. Once the person accepts, you will see him or her appear in your list of friends.

Once you have friends in Facebook, check out the Groups that they are involved with and the Applications that they have added. That will give you some ideas for things to be involved with. The idea of social networking is that you can see others’ friends and add people from those that your friends’ know. You can click on their profiles from my Facebook page and add them to your friends, too.

Task #18: Blog about your experience

Don’t forget to blog about your Facebook experience. (For example: Do you think you would continue to use Facebook after the Learning 2.0 experience is over? What kinds of things could you see yourself using Facebook for? How can you imagine libraries or schools using Facebook?)

You too can YouTube

Within the past year online video hosting sites have exploded, allowing users to easily upload and share videos on the web. Among all the web 2.0 players in this area, YouTube is currently top dog, serving up millions of views a day. YouTube allows users to not only upload their own video content, but to also embed clips into their own websites with ease.

Universities and Libraries are utilizing YouTube as well. You already watched the video about Web 2.0 created by a professor at Kansas State University. Thomson Gale, a library database provider, recently sponsored an I Love My Libary video contest by asking people to post their videos to their YouTube channel.

Do some searching around YouTube yourself and see what the site has to offer. You’ll find everything from educational themes such as Did You Know? to 1970s TV commercials to library dominos here. Of course, like any free site you’ll also find a lot stuff not worth watching too. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t explore and see for yourself!

Other popular video hosting sites:

Yahoo Videos
Google videos
blip.tv
Others – top video site list

Task #14

1. Explore YouTube or one of the sites listed above and find a video worth adding as an entry in your blog. Post a link to it with a description.

2. Create a blog post about your experience. What did you like or dislike about YouTube and why did you choose the video that you did? Can you see any features or components of the site that might be interesting if they were applied to library or university websites?

OPTIONAL: Try placing the video inside your blog! Once you find the video you want to use, find the box labeled “Embed.” Copy the html code in this box, and go to your blog. In your blog, switch from the “Compose” tab to the “Edit HTML” tab, and then paste the Embed code.

NOTE: Videos, like music downloads, are bandwidth hogs. It is recommended that you complete this exercise during light internet usage times, and on a computer with a fast internet connection.

Podcasts, Shmodcasts!

The word podcast is used to refer to an audio or video broadcast that is distributed over the Internet. Podcasts can contain almost anything: radio shows that were previously broadcasted on live radio, a recording of a speaker, how-to topics such as learning a foreign language, or radio stations might podcast a “song of the day.”

What differentiates a podcast from regular streaming audio or video is that the delivery method for podcasts is often done automatically through RSS technology, so once you subscribe to a particular podcast with a service, it can be continually updated when new podcasts from that same provider are available.

Here is an example of each from NPR’s website: streaming audio that you can listen to using Real Player or Windows Media Player on your computer, and NPR’s RSS podcasts that you can subscribe to, where you will get new podcasts each week automatically.

In 2005, “podcast” was named the “word of the year” by New Oxford American Dictionary and with the growth of podcasting over the last 24 months, it’s easy to see why.

Podcasts take many forms, from short 1-10 minute commentaries to much longer in-person interviews or panel group discussions. There’s a podcast out there for just about every interest area, and the best part about this technology is that you do NOT have to have an iPod or other MP3 player to access them. Since podcasts use the MP3 file format, a popular compressed format for audio files, you really just need a computer with headphones or speakers.

iTunes, the free downloadable application created by Apple, is the directory finding service most associated with podcasts. An interesting development is iTunes U, an area of the iTunes Store devoted to education, where colleges and universities can post content such as class lectures, presentations, performances, debates, or tours. According to Apple, “more than half of the nation’s top 500 schools use it to distribute their digital content to students — or to the world.”

If you do not have iTunes installed on your computer (or don’t want to install it) there are still plenty of options.

Discovery Resources:

1. To find out more about podcasts, start with the tutorial What is a podcast on the Yahoo Podcasts site. (According to the notice on the page, Yahoo is closing down the Podcasts site on Oct. 31, 2007. This is still a good tutorial and I haven’t found one better, so I decided to use it for the lesson anyway.)

2. There are many, many podcast directories and finding tools out there. Here are just three of the more popular ones that, unlike iTunes, do not require a software download:

Podcast.net
Podcastalley.com
Yahoo Podcasts

3. Optional: If you want to learn how to CREATE a podcast, try these:

Yahoo: Publish a podcast
Odeo’s Studio – online recording studio.
How to podcast tutorial

Task #15

1. Take a look at one or two of the podcast directories listed above and see if you can find a podcast that interests you.

2. Create a blog post about your discovery process. Did you find anything useful here?

Task #16

Subscribe to the podcast– Add the RSS feed for the podcast you have chosen to your Google Reader account. (You can always delete it later if you don’t really want it.) By doing this, you will be automatically notified when a new cast is available.

Tagging is an open and informal method of categorizing that allows users to associate keywords with online content (webpages, pictures & posts). Unlike library subject cataloging, which follows a strict set of guidelines (i.e.Library of Congress subject headings), tagging is completely unstructured and freeform, allowing users to create connections between data any way they want.

Del.icio.us is a social bookmarking manager which allows you to bookmark a web page and add tags to categorize your bookmarks.

One of the advantages of del.icio.us and other bookmarking sites (like google bookmarks) is that you can get to your bookmarks from any computer, instead of just the one you saved it on. However, many users find that the real power of Del.icio.us is in the social network aspect, which allows you to see how other users have tagged similar links and also discover other websites that may be of interest to you. You can think of it as peering into another users’ filing cabinet, but with this powerful bookmarking tool each user’s filing cabinet helps to build an expansive knowledge network.

For this discovery exercise, you will look at tags, tag clouds, then explore Del.icio.us and learn about this popular bookmarking tool (typed in as http://del.icio.us).

Discovery Exercise:

1. What is a tag? Read the wikipedia definition.

2. Discover tag clouds. From wikipedia:

“A tag cloud (or weighted list in visual design) can be used as a visual depiction of content tags used on a website. Often, more frequently used tags are depicted in a larger font or otherwise emphasized, while the displayed order is generally alphabetical. Thus both finding a tag by alphabet and by popularity is possible. Selecting a single tag within a tag cloud will generally lead to a collection of items that are associated with that tag.”

A good example of a tag cloud is the Tag Cloud at Flickr – scroll to the middle of the page to see the tag cloud. Notice the differences in the font size and boldness of the words. Most popular tags are larger and bolder. You can click on any tag to see photos that were tagged with that tag.

3. Watch the video Social Bookmarking in Plain English (approximately 3 minutes)

4. Read What is del.icio.us?.

5. Read What are tags? (in del.icio.us).

6. Take a look at a good example of one person’s del.icio.us page. Nicole Engard is a recent MLIS graduate of Drexel University who has compiled a very rich set of links on various academic and information technology subjects on her del.icio.us page at http://del.icio.us/nengard.

Notice on the right hand sidebar the list of tags she has used. (Scroll down– it’s a long list!) At the bottom, there is also an option to view the tag list as a tag cloud, or to sort the tags in different ways.

Click on one of the tags to see all the bookmarks she has saved with that tag. Notice that each one of the bookmarks has a note “saved by xxx other people.” This is also a link. Find a bookmark that a lot of other people have saved, and click on the “saved by” link. Here you can see the comments others have added about this bookmark and the tags that they used to categorize this reference. You can click on a user name to see that person’s del.icio.us page, too.

Task #12

Register for your own del.icio.us account. (If you install the buttons in your browser, you can easily post any site to your del.icio.us account and view your bookmarks, right from your browser toolbar.)

Once you have your own account, open a new window and surf to your favorite websites. Post the sites to your del.icio.us account, adding comments and appropriate tags.

Task #13

Create a post on your own blog about your experience and thoughts about this tool. If you want to, you can post a link to your del.icio.us page. Can you see the potential of this tool for research assistance? Or just as an easy way to create bookmarks that can be accessed from anywhere? Do you think you will use it in your personal web surfing?

A wiki is a collaborative website and authoring tool that allows users to easily add, remove and edit content. Wikipedia, the online open-community encyclopedia, is the largest and perhaps the most well known of these knowledge sharing tools. With the benefits that wikis provide the use and popularity of these tools is exploding.

Some of the benefits that make wikis so attractive are:

• -Anyone (registered or unregistered, if unrestricted) can add, edit or delete content.
• -Tracking tools within wikis allow you to easily keep up on what been changed and by whom.
• -Earlier versions of a page can be viewed and reinstated when needed.
• -Users do not need to know HTML in order to apply styles to text or add and edit content. In most cases simple syntax structure is used.

As the use of wikis has grown over the last few years, groups all over the country have begun to use them to collaborate and share knowledge. Libraries are using them for subject guides and book reviews; professional groups have created conference wikis and “best practices” wikis; and members of communities have created guides to their city.

Use these resources to learn more about wikis:

• Wikis in Plain English (approximately 4 minute video – speakers required) – a great introduction to wikis.
• Wikis: A Beginner’s Look — (short slide presentation – no speakers required) a short introduction to wikis with examples. When you see the slides for RocWiki and the Subject Guide wiki, be sure to click on the slide itself to explore those wikis. They are great examples of wikis.
• Using Wikis to Create Online Communities - a good overview of what a wiki is and how it can be used in libraries.
• The Library Success wiki is a good example of a wiki.
• The Wikipedia entry on wikis is very comprehensive.
• Examples of some wikis being used in higher education from the University of Washington IT site.
• Wide Open Spaces: Wikis, Ready or Not is an article by Brian Lamb, featured in Educause Review, Sept/Oct. 2004. The article has more examples of wikis used in higher education.

Task #10. Explore and play around with a wiki

For this discovery and exploration exercise, we’ve set up a Sewanee ITS wiki to play with! The wiki was created on a site called Wikispaces, which provides hosting for free wikis.

For this “explore-and-play-with-wikis” exercise, you are asked to add two or three entries to the Sewanee ITS wiki. The theme of this wiki is simply “Favorites” : Favorite books, favorite vacation spots, favorite restaurants, favorite anything …all you need to do is play and add your thoughts. To mark your adventure on this site, you should add your blog to the Favorite Blogs wikispace page.

1. Watch the Wikispaces introduction videos

• Wikispaces introduction video (approximately 2 minutes – speakers or headphones required).
• Wikispaces files and pictures video (approximately 3 minutes – speakers or headphones required).

2. Go to the Sewanee ITS wiki and sign in as SewaneeITS and use Learning20 as your password.

3. Add your blog to the Favorite Blogs page on the wiki. (That’s the only way we’ll know that you’ve been there!)

4. Add a favorite or two to a few other pages (Favorite books, favorite vacation spot, etc).

5. If you want to add another category, feel free. If you want to add pictures or links, do that! Just play around.

Task #11. Write a post in your blog about your experience and thoughts about wikis. How do you think a wiki might be useful for your work or your office?

Make life “really simple” with RSS and a newsreader

You’ve heard of RSS? You’ve seen those small funny tags on websites? You’ve heard co-workers and acquaintances swear by it, but still have no idea what RSS is? Well don’t worry, according to a recent survey you’re still in the majority, but this is changing rapidly. In the information world, RSS is not only revolutionalizing the way news, media and content creators share information, but it also is swiftly changing the way everyday users are consuming information.

RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication” and is a file format for delivering regularly updated information over the web.

Just think about the websites and news information sources you visit every day. It takes time to visit those sites and scour the ad-filled and image-heavy pages for just the text you want to read, doesn’t it? Now imagine if you could visit all those information sources and web pages in just one place and all at the same time … without being bombarded with advertising… without having to search for new information on the page you’d already seen or read before… and without having to consume a lot of time visiting each site individually. Would that be valuable to you? Well, it’s available now through a newsreader and RSS.

This week’s discovery exercises focus on learning about RSS news feeds and setting up a Google Reader account (a free online newsreader) for yourself to bring your feeds together.

Watch this excellent video that explains how RSS works: RSS in Plain English.

There are lots of RSS readers (also called newsreaders, or aggregators), including applications that you download onto your computer. The advantage of web-based RSS readers is that you can view them from any computer on the web. Bloglines is a popular web-based reader, and there is even a reader built in to Internet Explorer 7, if you are using that browser. The RSS reader we are going to use is Google Reader. (If you already have an RSS reader set up, you can skip this part.)

Task #7. Set up a Google Reader account and add a feed.

A good idea would be to add a feed for this blog to your reader. That way you will know when a new lesson is posted. I’ve made it easy with the button over at the right in the sidebar. Just click on the one that says “Add to Google.” You can also subscribe to your coworker’s blogs. Just Click on “add a subscription” and paste in the url of the blog. Google reader will automatically find the feed and you’ll be subscribed. This way you will be able to see if they have posted anything without going to each one to check.

Also, don’t forget to bookmark your Reader page in your browser, or better yet, add it to your toolbar!

Here are some more resources (optional) on using Google Reader:

These may make things a little clearer if you are confused, because they include some of the same info we’ve covered.

Task #8. Locate and Subscribe to News Feeds for useful sites

There are several ways you can locate newsfeeds:

• When visiting your favorite websites — look for news feed icons that indicate that the website provides it. Often a feed icon will be displayed somewhere in the navigation bar of the site.
• Use Google Reader’s browse tool – Click on Add subscription, then enter a keyword for your topic of interest.
• Other Search tools that can help you find feeds:
  • Feedster – One of the largest collections of RSS feeds, Feedster lets you search for feeds in three categories: news, blogs & podcasts.
  • Topix.net – This search tool allows you to locate recent newsfeed items based upon keyword or phrase searching. The tool focuses specifically on news and media outlet RSS feeds for information, not weblogs.
  • Syndic8.com – Syndic8 is an open directory of RSS feeds that contains thousands of RSS feeds that users have submitted.
  • Technorati – Technorati is a popular blog finding tool that lets you search for blogs. Since RSS feeds are inherent to all blogging tools, Technorati Blog Search can help you find RSS feeds for topic specific blogs you may be interested in.

I was going to share suggestions for sites that some ITS staff members find especially useful, but instead, I’m going to ask all of you to share your own favorite sites in your blogs or by commenting on this entry.

Task #9. Create a blog post about your experience. Don’t know what to blog about? Here are some questions to think about:

• • How do you think you might be able to use this technology in your work or personal life?
  • How can your department use RSS or take advantage of this new technology?
  • Which method of finding feeds did you find easiest to use?
  • Which search tool was the easiest for you? Which was more confusing?
  • What other tools or ways did you find to locate newsfeeds?
  • What kind of useful feeds did you find in your travels? Or what kind of unusual ones did you find?

Flicker Tools and Mashups 

Like many web 2.0 sites, Flickr has encouraged other people to build their own online applications using images found on the site. Because it has an open API (Application Programming Interface), anyone can write their own program that works with Flickr.  Many people have created third party tools and “mashups” that use Flickr images.  A “mashup” is basically a hybrid web application that takes features from one application (like Flickr) and mashes them up with another (like a map).  In this example, you get Mappr (http://mappr.com). Mashups can be anything from toys and simple games to tools and applications that you use every day.

 Here is just a sampling of a few:

Mappr – A web-based application which uses tag information to place thumbnails of photostream images on a map of the US.

Flickr Color Pickr – lets you find public photos in Flickr that match a specific color.

Guess the Title: A multi-player Flickr photo guessing game.

Yes, some of these seem pointless or silly, but others may turn out to be useful. People who enjoy programming this stuff are creative, and every now and then someone comes up with something that catches on in a big way.

There are lots of Flickr mashups, web apps, and 3rd party tools out there.

Task #6. Explore some of the programs from the links above, and create a blog post about one that intrigues you.

PS: Web 2.0 image created by Spell with Flickr.

Sewanee,
originally uploaded by tnpal.

Photo sharing websites have been around since the 90s, but it took a small startup site called Flickr to catapult the idea of “sharing” into a full blown online community. Within the past year, Flickr has become the fastest growing photo sharing site on the web and is known as one of the first websites to use keyword “tags” to create associations and connections between photos and users of the site.

Task #4.Explore Flickr and learn about this popular image hosting site

For this exercise, you are asked to take a good look at Flickr and discover what this site has to offer. Find out how tags work, what groups are, and all the neat things that people are using Flickr for.

• Take the Flickr tour (7 steps)
• Explore the last 7 days, geotagging, and most popular tags
• Take a look at the Creative Commons license options
• Do a few searches (try a search on “Sewanee”!)

Task #5. Upload a picture to your blog and write something about it

There are a few different ways you can do this.

1. You can use Blogger’s photo upload tool from within Blogger to upload either a photo you already have on your computer, or an image you have selected from the web. If you want to use a picture from the web, (such as on Flickr), you will need to find the URL of the image. Also, keep in mind the rules about using other people’s pictures.

2. Or, you can use Flickr’s blogging tool to create a blog post on your own blog from within Flickr. This requires that you set up a Flickr account. Just as Blogger is owned by Google, Flickr is currently owned by Yahoo. If you already have a Yahoo account, you can use this. If not, you can register for one.

Photo posting etiquette: You should always ask before you use someone else’s pictures, unless they have a Creative Commons license that specifies allowable usage. When posting identifiable photos of other people (especially minors) is it advisable to get the person’s permission before posting their photo in a publicly accessible place. Never upload pictures that weren’t taken by you (unless you have the photographer’s consent) and always give credit when you include photos taken by someone else in your blog.

If you don’t have a picture to upload, or don’t want to ask someone for permission to use one of theirs, you are welcome to use any of these photos. Or, if you really don’t want to do that, then just write a post about anything technology related.

The word “blog” is a shortened form of “weblog.” Blogs are a class of web sites that promote personal publishing of ideas, news, progress, and reflections. Blogs are maintained through a web interface that allow an individual to publish content that automatically organizes posts, provides channels for feedback, and produces a site feed of recent content. People generally create a blog to communicate with an audience on a given theme or topic. Blogging has permeated most areas of popular culture as people are using blogs to communicate with friends and family, as sources of news, in education, to form communities around a personal interest, etc.

Blogs can be used in diverse ways within a college, such as for departmental websites, for personal writing and reflection, in support of the study abroad experience, tracking projects and committee work, project development, and classwork.

Blogging has established itself as a cornerstone of Web2.0 culture because of its ease of use and ability to connect people with one another. Thus, blogging will be central to our Learning 2.0 project, and it’s time now to set up your very own personal blog.

Some things to keep in mind:

• Your blog should be work friendly. For the duration of this tutorial there will be work related content on it and your co-workers may read it. After the tutorial is over, it doesn’t have to be about work, but readers should be comfortable reading it at work.
• Your blog posts should be at least 100-150 words each week – we’d like to have a conversation and the more you post, the better the conversation will be. But, saying that, it’s better to have short posts than to not participate at all. If you can only think of one or two sentences to say for some topics, that’s fine.
• How you choose to identity yourself on your blog is your choice. You can blog under a screen name, anonymously, or as yourself. For this exercise we are recommending that you use Blogger, a popular free online blog hosting service that is easy to use.

Note: There are other blogging platforms besides Blogger. This project blog is using WordPress, and is hosted on the Sewanee server instead of on the WordPress site. If you already have a blog, or are more familiar with another platform, then you certainly may use whatever you like.

Tip: Multiple Passwords

During the coming weeks, as there will be exercises requiring you to set up logins to various websites. It would make sense to have a handy spot to record all your passwords for these!

Task #3: Set up your blog and add a post to it

1. Go to http://www.blogger.com/ Blogger is owned by Google. You may already have a Google Gmail account. If so use it to sign in to Blogger, or if not, then follow the steps below.
2. Click on “Take a Quick Tour.” This will explain some things about the features of Blogger. Then you will be led to create a Google account.
3. Once you create your Google account, you will use this to sign in to Blogger. Your sign in name is your gmail address, without the @gmail.com. Your password is the same one you use for your gmail account. (Be sure to make a note of it!)
4. On the next screen, click on “Create blog now.”
5. Select a display name– the name you will be known by on your blog. You can use your real name or an alias, if you wish to be anonymous.
6. Name your blog and choose an address. The name is the title that displays at the top. For example, Bobbi’s Thoughts or Bobbi’s Babbling. Your address is the URL people will type into go to go your blog, they do not have to match. For example your address could be bbi123.blogspot.com. It may be hard to find an address that’s available, you may have to try several and use the “check availability” button. Be sure to also write down your blog address.
7. Select your template.
8. You’re ready to start blogging! Create your first post, even if it’s just a test post.
9. Email Pat Thompson (pthompso) with the web address of your blog. We will add it to the list of Participants. (If you have an anonymous blog, it will be kept confidential. You just have to trust.)

Once you’ve created your blog here are a couple important things to know:

1. To add posts: Log into your account at http://www.blogger.com/
2. Click on sign in
3. Use your gmail address and password to sign in
4. To view your blog the way others will see it: type in your URL from step 6.

Your First Blog Post

Wondering what to write? The topic can be anything you want. If you are having trouble, here are some suggestions:

• What do you hope to get out of this project?
• Tell us about your experience, if any, with Web 2.0 and what you’re looking forward to most about participating in the project.
• How has technology changed your job over the past 10 or 20 years? How do you think it will change in the future?
• Tell us about your online life – what internet applications do you use, if any, what web sites do you like to visit, etc.

This program will explain 23 things that you can do on the web to explore and expand your knowledge of the Internet and Web 2.0. These are self-paced discovery exercises. You are encouraged to work at a rate that fits in with your work schedule, and aim to complete all 23 items on this list by August 10, 2007.  If you get behind, don’t worry. There will be a four-week “grace period” at the end to give everyone time to catch up and still qualify for the incentives. The weekly schedule is to help you stay on track, but is not mandatory. There are incentives too!

It’s all about team work, so consult your colleagues if you need help.  Above all, have fun with it!    

Task #1: Getting Started/Introduction  

To start everyone off, we’d like you to view this video:

Over the course of the next ten weeks, this website will highlight “23 Things” and discovery exercises to help you become familiar with blogging, RSS news feeds, tagging, wikis, podcasting, online applications, and video and image hosting sites. To familiarize yourself with this project, be sure to read the About page. The FAQ page should answer most of your questions about this program. If not, then please add your question to the FAQ page as a comment, and we’ll post some answers or add things to the FAQ.

For some insight about WHY we are doing this program, read this essay by Kevin Eikenberry about ways to be a continuous learner.

Task #2: What is Web 2.0?

That is a good question. The term “Web 2.0″ is not an official computer-science based term. It has taken hold as a popular way to describe the “next phase” of the internet. Whereas the first phase was largely static in that users tapped into the Internet for information, Web 2.0 will be characterised by collaboration and interaction. Users will no longer be just consumers but will contributors to web content and interact directly with other users.

The “Webopedia” on internet.com has a fairly concise definition.

On Wikipedia, there is a longer explanation of Web 2.0.  Take a look at it, and read as much as you want to.

Here is a 5-minute video that explains Web 2.0.

Here is another video (4 1/2 minutes long), created in response to the first one, that illustrates Web 2.0 concepts in an interesting way.

After reviewing the linked resources please leave a comment on this blog (down below this post, click on the word Comments) on what you think Web 2.0 is, ask a question about Web 2.0, or provide the URL of another resource attempting to explain Web 2.0. Feel free to respond to other people’s comments, too.