The figure above was a work in progress developed in an O'Reilly camp during 2005 and included in an article on developing business models in the Web 2.0 era. As an educator, what I interpreted as a concept map gave me great insight into Web 2.0, and allowed me to fantasize about how the 2013 meme map utilizing a dynamic medium, embedded with hyperlinks and podcasts, would appear.
This meme map gave me a great place to begin to understand all that is 2.0. I attended Michigan State's 29th annual educational technology conference last fall and left with a list of jargon to translate. This article provided a great basis for understanding all that I observed or witnessed at the conference. Building my basis of understanding through articles like these would have enabled me to engage fully at the conference; rather than leaving with a list of items to identify, I could have left with an action plan that could have been implemented using the new knowledge!
The article also reminded me of my math ed training where we studied the educational policies in the United States dating back to the late 1800's and we used Isaac Newton's paradigm of "standing on the shoulders of giants." Technology can provide a medium for us not only to see farther, but to go further, if we trust and share our knowledge. Dr. Alec Couros of the University of Regina told me he's always given away everything he's developed. He is an associate professor who is signed as a keynote speaker around the world promotes shared knowledge and collaborating with others to develop ideas. Teachers have naturally done this for years, shared their wares, but this is a concept that is counter-intuitive to entrepreneurs and business people who are trying to develop metrics to measure learning and teacher effectiveness, as well as balance budgets and privatize education.
As I mentioned, O'Reilly provided me a basis for my understanding the 2.0 world, by paralleling it to its 1.0 beginnings. The 2.0 world views software as a service not as an end product, that the consumer's input really makes them a co-developer, that the focus needs to be on getting data out there, not on what people do with it when they get there. The key lies in exploiting the true potential of the platform that is the web, and creating a seamless databases of knowledge in which students can safely immerse themselves, engage and learn.
Just as we close in on developing an understanding what Web 2.0 is today, Web 3.0 will be exploding out of the gate. That time is close on the horizon, with most people having access to the web on personal android or i-devices (tablet, phone, or even watch)! At the rate we are progressing, that which is a history lesson dated 2005, could actually be a history lesson of 2012. The only thing that may slow the progression is the turf war between Google and Apple; once they settle we can again move forward at mach speed developing a plethora of applications that will help us learn!
Sources
O'Reilly, T. (2005, October 30). What is Web 2.0? Developing Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software. In O'Reilly Network. Retrieved February 2, 2013, from http://oreilly.com/lpt/a/6228
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