What is Web 2.0?

“Web 2.0” is a term that was created in 2004 to describe the interactive ways in which users share information, communicate, and participate with one another in the World Wide Web (Bartolomé, 2008).  The term originated at a brainstorming session hosted by Tim O’Reilly and MediaLive International where participants discussed how the Internet was changing. At this brainstorming session, participants noticed users were creating websites that fostered interaction rather than mere consumption. Participants noted that the newer sites included “specific technologies like wikis and blogs, a new way of creating web pages like mash-ups, and a massive use of descriptors or tags in what as been defined as a folksonomies” (Bartolomé, 2008).

Resulting from this brainstorming session was an outline of basic differences between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0. In Web 1.0 users view websites, create websites, and gather information whereas in Web 2.0, everyone can add and edit information on websites. Thus, users began to have bi-dimensional interactions with the Internet in Web 2.0 where they had previously had a one-dimensional interaction through Web 1.0. The six main ideas of Web 2.0 as indicated by Anderson (2007) are: “individual production and user generated content, harness the power of the crowd, data on an epic scale, architecture of participation, network effects, and openness.” These main ideas denote the many opportunities to interact via Web 2.0. Bartolomé (2008) credits this change to an increase in bandwidth. The increase in bandwidth allowed users to add an audiovisual component to Internet Websites that created an explosion of audiovisual materials on the Internet.

There are many products that represent Web 2.0 such as wikis, blogs, RSS reader pages, online office applications, social bookmarking, video repositories, shared documents and podcasts, video on-line, social networks, and group work spaces (Bartolomé, 2008). These products encourage user interaction and knowledge sharing. For example, a wiki is considered a ‘dynamic document’ because it is always under construction and can be edited/added to by the users. One of the most commonly known wikis today is Wikipedia. Wikis are also used in education as users create sites that have lesson plans, materials, and manipulatives by subject, topic, and grade level to share with one another. There is great potential for these Web 2.0 resources to impact learning. In fact, these Web 2.0 resources are just beginning to be tapped into for use in eLearning.

Additionally, Web 2.0 consists of social networking sites such as Facebook and Myspace. It is hard to distinguish whether some websites are Web 1.0 or Web 2.0. Some websites have characteristics of Web 2.0, but are not completely interactive and have been classified as Web 1.5 such as Friendster where users cannot interact with content as freely as Facebook (Cormode & Krishnamurthy, 2008). Tagging is another important component of Web 2.0. Bartolomé (2008) calls this tagging a folksonomy whereas a Web 1.0 directory is considered a taxonomy. The folksonomy allows more user integration.

As there are constant improvements to integration of “web page presentation, interactive data exchange between client and server, client slide scripts, and asynchronous update of server response,” there will continue to be an increased use in Web 2.0 products (Cormode & Krishnamurthy, 2008). The increase in Web 2.0 has created a new paradigm for eLearning. It allows for distance learning and promotes the integration rather than the separation of learning and living (Bartolomé, 2008). Web 2.0 is an incredible platform for current and future social interaction and knowledge sharing.

Anderson, P. (2007). What is Web 2.0? Ideas, technologies and implications for education. JISC Technology & Standards Watch. Retrieved from http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/techwatch/tsw0701b.pdf

Bartolomé, A.  (2008). Web 2.0 and new learning paradigms. eLearning Papers, 8, 1-10. Retrieved from http://www.elearningpapers.info/files/media/media 15529.pdf

Cormode, G. &  Krishnamurthy, B. (2008). Key differences between Web1.0 and Web2.0.