According to Wikipedia Web 2.0 refers to ‘the perceived (italics mine) second-generation of Web-based services’. Note the word perceived. Web 2.0 is probably about conceptual change of the Internet rather than any actual structural change. Although the technology and bandwidth is improving all the time, Web 2.0 is very much about changing conceptions of how the Internet is used.

The Wikipedia article makes reference to O’Reilly Media. It’s worth having a read of this article to get a better idea of where the Web 2.0 concept came about. Starters, pages 1 - 3 are the first of the readings that will need to be summarised.

Web 2.0 has also described as the read/write web. Supporting the collaborative and social nature of this web environment are varieties of social computing tools. These tools are gaining rapid acceptance amongst the younger generations. For instance see the article Teens Latch on to Social Computing Tools.

For this topic we will look at a few of these social computing tools and see if they have a place in the modern classroom. As it’s only a two week topic it will be a bit of a cursory look but I’ll provide links to items of interest that you can read at your leisure if you wish.