It is important to recognize that the emergence of the Web 2.0 is not a technological revolution, it is a social revolution, it is about how we use and perceive the Web. "Here's my take on it: Web 2.0 is an attitude not a technology. It's about enabling and encouraging participation through open applications and services. By open I mean technically open with appropriate APIs but also, more importantly, socially open, with rights granted to use the content in new and exciting contexts" (Downes, 2008)
As mentioned above CitySpace already has the necessary technology to shift from one-to-many approach to many-to-many, i.e. shift from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0. Lecturers and other staff have already great tools to create content. These tools and many other tools should be available to students.
The Figure 1 illustrates the concept of integration of Web 2.0 applications to CitySpace. Potential developments that could be implemented into or used in parallel with current CitySpace system to improve and encourage creativity and sharing through collaboration and participation include:
UNIVERSAL ACCESS
Every year students create invaluable information through the discussion boards. By making this information accessible through discussion board search engine will be beneficial to new students. Adding to this concept, CitySpace is pre-customised based on student’s chosen course, hence the student can only see the content only for the relevant undertaken modules. Making any course material available to any student, and let the student choose and pick which course modules to follow. This would encourage students to take up on extra curriculum modules and self-study. Due to the nature of the content database, City University board should authorise the contents allowed to universal access.
FILE SHARING
Creating a “student bucket” for file-sharing where one can find: past exams with relevant discussion and sample answers, lecture slides and notes with relevant documents, audio and/or video recordings of past courses. To mention, but few: Slideshare.net – website where users can upload, view and share presentations and YouTube EDU – videos and channels from YouTube university and college partners.
PROFILING
Students (also staff) can create a public profile (Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin, etc) to give brief background information. This could also be made public outside university, making it available to future potential employers who could directly contact particular students if they are of any interest (employers might be interested in projects any particular student involved).
BLOG
UK scholars are slowly but surely heading into the blogosphere (Corbyn, 2008). Blogging (LiveJournal, Blogger.com, WordPress.com, xanga.com etc) is a powerful teaching/learning tool which lets anyone to publish website and create content with ease. Lecturers could create blogs of interest for students to comment on. Unlike current discussion boards these blogs would be available to view and comment upon for any student.
TWITTER
Yet another powerful social networking tool entering Higher Education is Twitter. Twitter can be used as a communications tool for collaborating researchers; As a way to get students to focus in a concise (140 words) way on a topic; and as a way for conference attendees/students to discuss topics on the spot, live, again in a concise manner (ELI,2007).
Twitter application could be implemented in the system for the lecturers so the students will “follow” to stay up to date with the lecturer, similar to Announcements on the current CitySpace. But this feature is useful as lecturers can update their status from their mobile phones. E.g. the change of lecture room or the lecturer is simply a little late, reminder of any changes in submission dates of coursework or change in exam dates.
DISSEMINATION TOOLBAR
Integration of dissemination toolbar into CitySpace 2.0 will make it possible to share chosen content with the community easily. Below, the Figure 2 displays the concept, e.g. Lecturer can upload new material to CitySpace and can immediately twitter about it to students. If students find this material interesting they can share it on social networking sites like Facebook or at social bookmarking sites like Digg or StumpleUpon, and so on.
As the social software applications open to all, some of the content published on CitySpace might require an authorised access only. This will ensure the content shared only amongst registered university community.
Figure 2: Integration of Social Networking links to CitySpace
WIKI
The most popular wiki is collaborative online encyclopaedia, the Wikipedia. Simply, Wiki is a website or a collection of websites on a particular topic which can be created and edited by anyone. It is a website that is constantly “under construction”. Providers of wikis: Wikispaces, Seedwiki, PBWiki, WikiCities, Schtuff, Riters.com, etc.
Currently, once students submit their work for marking it is stored in a database with no future access to other potentially interested parties. It is a creative content that could benefit other students or any other web user if the work is published through wiki pages. It could eventually evolve into a rich content website by constant edition and collaboration.
Wikis can be useful to create e-portfolios. Unlike chorological blogs, wikis are organised by content. Depending on the importance of timeline the decision can be made which tool to use to create e-portfolio. (University of Delaware, 2008)
As some e-portfolios considered individual security issues, such as intruder editing others work, could be solved by the use of wikis internally within the university system to control over access to edit the website.
RSS
Sheer number of available social networking tools is overwhelming for anyone to follow without the use of RSS feeds. RSS – “Really Simple Syndication” or “Rich Site Summary” is a simple yet powerful tool that saves time visiting websites of interest by retrieving latest content from websites. Similar tool to web-based aggregator Google Reader could be added to CitySpace which would enable users to retrieve content from multiple website into one through RSS and/or Atom.
To sum up some but few mentioned potentials of Web 2.0 applications which could be used to improve educational process, it needs to be stressed that Web 2.0 is an attitude not a technology (Davis, 2005). Students are already using most of the tools and it is time for Education Systems to use those tools through changing attitude towards Web 2.0 way of teaching. This could be achieved by making relevant social software available through CitySpace system to lectures as well as students. Figure 3 illustrates the changeover needed to achieve this goal.
Figure 3: Shift to CitySpace 2.0 through use of Web 2.0 networking tools.
Source: The Networked Student: 21st Century Literacy: Network Literacy (pwoessner.com)
Typical Teacher Network and The Networked Teacher: TEACH WEB 2.0: The
Networked Student Revision B (teachweb2.blogspot.com)
As mentioned above CitySpace already has the necessary technology to shift from one-to-many approach to many-to-many, i.e. shift from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0. Lecturers and other staff have already great tools to create content. These tools and many other tools should be available to students.
The Figure 1 illustrates the concept of integration of Web 2.0 applications to CitySpace. Potential developments that could be implemented into or used in parallel with current CitySpace system to improve and encourage creativity and sharing through collaboration and participation include:UNIVERSAL ACCESS
Every year students create invaluable information through the discussion boards. By making this information accessible through discussion board search engine will be beneficial to new students. Adding to this concept, CitySpace is pre-customised based on student’s chosen course, hence the student can only see the content only for the relevant undertaken modules. Making any course material available to any student, and let the student choose and pick which course modules to follow. This would encourage students to take up on extra curriculum modules and self-study. Due to the nature of the content database, City University board should authorise the contents allowed to universal access.
FILE SHARING
Creating a “student bucket” for file-sharing where one can find: past exams with relevant discussion and sample answers, lecture slides and notes with relevant documents, audio and/or video recordings of past courses. To mention, but few: Slideshare.net – website where users can upload, view and share presentations and YouTube EDU – videos and channels from YouTube university and college partners.
PROFILING
Students (also staff) can create a public profile (Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin, etc) to give brief background information. This could also be made public outside university, making it available to future potential employers who could directly contact particular students if they are of any interest (employers might be interested in projects any particular student involved).
BLOG
UK scholars are slowly but surely heading into the blogosphere (Corbyn, 2008). Blogging (LiveJournal, Blogger.com, WordPress.com, xanga.com etc) is a powerful teaching/learning tool which lets anyone to publish website and create content with ease. Lecturers could create blogs of interest for students to comment on. Unlike current discussion boards these blogs would be available to view and comment upon for any student.
Yet another powerful social networking tool entering Higher Education is Twitter. Twitter can be used as a communications tool for collaborating researchers; As a way to get students to focus in a concise (140 words) way on a topic; and as a way for conference attendees/students to discuss topics on the spot, live, again in a concise manner (ELI,2007).
Twitter application could be implemented in the system for the lecturers so the students will “follow” to stay up to date with the lecturer, similar to Announcements on the current CitySpace. But this feature is useful as lecturers can update their status from their mobile phones. E.g. the change of lecture room or the lecturer is simply a little late, reminder of any changes in submission dates of coursework or change in exam dates.
DISSEMINATION TOOLBAR
Integration of dissemination toolbar into CitySpace 2.0 will make it possible to share chosen content with the community easily. Below, the Figure 2 displays the concept, e.g. Lecturer can upload new material to CitySpace and can immediately twitter about it to students. If students find this material interesting they can share it on social networking sites like Facebook or at social bookmarking sites like Digg or StumpleUpon, and so on.
As the social software applications open to all, some of the content published on CitySpace might require an authorised access only. This will ensure the content shared only amongst registered university community.
Figure 2: Integration of Social Networking links to CitySpaceWIKI
The most popular wiki is collaborative online encyclopaedia, the Wikipedia. Simply, Wiki is a website or a collection of websites on a particular topic which can be created and edited by anyone. It is a website that is constantly “under construction”. Providers of wikis: Wikispaces, Seedwiki, PBWiki, WikiCities, Schtuff, Riters.com, etc.
Currently, once students submit their work for marking it is stored in a database with no future access to other potentially interested parties. It is a creative content that could benefit other students or any other web user if the work is published through wiki pages. It could eventually evolve into a rich content website by constant edition and collaboration.
Wikis can be useful to create e-portfolios. Unlike chorological blogs, wikis are organised by content. Depending on the importance of timeline the decision can be made which tool to use to create e-portfolio. (University of Delaware, 2008)
As some e-portfolios considered individual security issues, such as intruder editing others work, could be solved by the use of wikis internally within the university system to control over access to edit the website.
RSS
Sheer number of available social networking tools is overwhelming for anyone to follow without the use of RSS feeds. RSS – “Really Simple Syndication” or “Rich Site Summary” is a simple yet powerful tool that saves time visiting websites of interest by retrieving latest content from websites. Similar tool to web-based aggregator Google Reader could be added to CitySpace which would enable users to retrieve content from multiple website into one through RSS and/or Atom.
To sum up some but few mentioned potentials of Web 2.0 applications which could be used to improve educational process, it needs to be stressed that Web 2.0 is an attitude not a technology (Davis, 2005). Students are already using most of the tools and it is time for Education Systems to use those tools through changing attitude towards Web 2.0 way of teaching. This could be achieved by making relevant social software available through CitySpace system to lectures as well as students. Figure 3 illustrates the changeover needed to achieve this goal.
Figure 3: Shift to CitySpace 2.0 through use of Web 2.0 networking tools.Source: The Networked Student: 21st Century Literacy: Network Literacy (pwoessner.com)
Typical Teacher Network and The Networked Teacher: TEACH WEB 2.0: The
Networked Student Revision B (teachweb2.blogspot.com)
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