Develop your skills - Web 2.0 Tools
Skills
To understand the basics of Web 2.0's free social networking tools, you will explore:
- What is Web 2.0 and how can it be useful to you
- Digital image sharing sites
- Types of social writing platforms and collaborative writing tools
You will continue to practice your internet skills to access a range of web based reference sites and online resources for this topic.
What is Web 2.0?
Web 2.0 websites enable users to be both producers and consumers of information. Review the two following resources to get an overview:
- Web 2.0 View a short video clip not only defining what Web 2.0 is, but also an example of Web 2.0 works. This video is being shared on a web 2 media sharing site (for those of you with broadband)
- Web 2.0 from Wikipedia. Use another web 2.0 tool to read about the phenomenon! (for those of you with dial up!)
Flickr
So what do you do with all those digital images you have been taking with you digital cameras? One thing you can do is to share them with your friends photo sharing sites. Flickr is a free site that enables you to “store, search, sort and share your photos”.
The following resources will help you find out about how to use Flickr:
- About Flickr: Wikipedia provides a short description of this site and what it can be used for
- How to use Flickr (if you have broadband this site may be helpful)
Social writing platforms include weblogs, wikis, and collarborative writing tools like Writeboard and Writely. These platforms are web spaces that support people creating and editing each other’s content. (Alexander, 2006).
Try a couple out:
- Writeboard lets users rapidly create a web page focused on an item of writing content, prominently visible in the browser. It is password protected identifying and restricting individual contributors to the creator’s invitees with a simple to use interface.
- Blogger is a free weblog space provided by Google. In a blog authors construct blogs, readers make comments and then, the comments also become addressable, forming a new layer of content (Alexander, 2006).
A great example of Web 2.0 web developments is Google Earth.
Google Earth combines satellite imagery, maps and the power of Google Search to put the world's geographic information at your fingertips.
Download the software that lets you see where you live online!
The ‘blogosphere’(weblogs) is doubling in size every five and a half months: it is 60 times larger than it was 3 years ago. In three years, Wikipedia has amassed more than 3 700 000 articles in over 123 ‘active’ languages, including over 1 000 000 in the English-language version alone. (Wikipedia, March 2006) In April 2005, Flickr boasted 270 000 users, four million photos, 30 percent monthly growth in users, and 50 percent monthly growth in photos (Koman, 2005). Earlier this year the number of photos had increased to 100 million images (Kullin, 2006).
What have I learned?
After completing these activities you should:- understand the read/write nature of new tools now available on the web
- have tried at least one or two of these tools
- feel confident in having a go at using some of these tools