I’m glad I know this exists now, not that I can see myself using it personally (as I love to read books in bed) but certainly many educational uses I can forsee. Definitely as mentioned for ESL and Special Ed.  I can also see it as a great resource for early years literacy groups, instead of listening posts, kids can have the experience of hearing the texts read with the images as well.  The scope for variety of texts that become accessible is amazing (also for books from last century and earlier!) WOW.

This is just too weird!  It really begs the question of what life is really about, and to me this is taking technology too far.

Here’s a comment from the site of Ohio University Second Life Campus: “In the future there won’t be any need for REAL social interaction, we’ll all just be blobs behind our computers living a virtual life where pimply nerds act like gangsters…”

I don’t think that’s going to happen but still..

After looking at several of the discovery sites I can see how it relates to education in terms of it being another information resource and how virtual worlds are representing major trends in education.  The work-related areas of Second Life (which don’t seem to represent the majority) are certainly relevant forms of literacies and do offer meaningful ways to reinvent the classroom. There are also significant possibilities with Second Life for displaying talent and creativity and also for students with disabilities.  One site describes Second Life as a world of endless possibilities, of imagination and discovery that breaks the bonds of traditional learning environments. I can see that this may be true but it still doesn’t resonate well with me. 

Each week’s activities seem to show me more and more firstly, the endless possibilities of Web 2.0 and secondly, how far removed I am from this cyber world… scary.

TeacherTube has so many important applications for teaching and learning.  I have looked at it in the past and found lots of relevant and interesting videos.  It is very annoying to have to wait for the downloading during a video though, certainly interrupts the flow of speech.  When I tried to get on the site this time (from home) something crashed (program didn’t respond once I’d opened TeacherTube) so I’ll have to try again from the school network to be able to find a video worth adding as an entry here. 

One I do want to explore further is: Dr Ken Robinson on YouTube.  That’s on the to do list. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY

On YouTube, the video by Michael Wesch on Web 2.0 is AMAZING! I loved it, had to smile so many times. And now I think I get it, Web 2.0 that is. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE

This informative video on Web 2.0 was also very clear.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsa5ZTRJQ5w

It is just increadible how this technology has taken off.  I still don’t have much understanding of iPods and MPS players as I don’t own one.  It’s all new for me.  Once you start looking at the directories, its endless…so many podcasts are out there, it sure seems there’s one on almost everything.  I’m still trying to find my way around all the downloading software.  In the instructions it says that Podcastalley.com and Yahoo Podcasts don’t require a software download. Yahoo each time I’ve tried to access says website not found and Podcastalley (to me) seems to only let you look at Podcasts after downloading software and registering.  Have to explore further.

Rollyo offers the ability to search the content of a list of specified websites, allowing you to narrow down the results to pages from websites that you already know and trust.

I think Rollyo is a great idea but again a reason to spend more time on the computer!  (Which I’d like to reduce).  I rarely do web searches so I can’t see I’d find a lot of use for it but I’m glad I know that it exists!  It’s true, I never know when this little tool might come in handy!

Here’s the link to the search roll I created.

http://www.rollyo.com/321321321/health_search/

Wikis are an interesting phenomonen that I am really not very familiar with.  It does seem like a good opportunity to ‘harness the collective intelligence’ as one site said, but I can see that it is perhaps not ideal for all applications.  A wiki allows a group of people to collaboratively develop a Web site with no knowledge of HTML or other markup languages which is definitely a bonus.

I ‘m surprised there is not more ‘vandalism’ of sites as many rely on people’s good will to use the site appropriately.  Some applications of wikis that might work well in schools could be:

I think I am still trying to get my head around everything that is ‘Web 2.0’ as I’m not even sure I know what was the former Web (1.0) prior to 2001 (or whenever it was that things turned around.)

I understand from Michael Casey’s document “Service for the Next Generation Library” that the challenge for Libraries is how they can  “survive in a world of Web-based, user-created content.”  My view of libraries has still predominately been the one of  brick-and-mortar establishments” as he describes but I can appreciate the need for Libraries (and everyone else) to become part of the online world.

 The overall concept of Library 2.0 is presented as: two-way information flow, task sharing (such as tagging, classification, etc.), open services from internal and external sources (read as ‘not proprietary’), and aggregating data using customer criteria – all of this being built upon the foundation that is Web 2.0. 

I see more and more the necessity of keeping up with change in all respects, as Michael states, “What we need to do is become comfortable in this reality of constant change.  We cannot create our service and sit back and watch its success, for as soon as we do that we’ll see the next service (perhaps a disruptive service) come along and steal our customers (and our glory) – or perhaps we won’t see it until it’s too late.”

I am certianly finding the experience of discovering what is available on the web really interesting.  I find the good thing about del.icio.us is that, in the same way as Google Docs, you are able to store bookmarks online so that you can access them from any computer and add to them wherever you are.  There is certainly merit in being able to do this.  I can see that the world of the computers is becoming more and more flexible in this way, allowing people to be less attached to one computer, and one way of doing things. 

This is great!  I just keep being amazed at what is available on the net.  I always thought Google was just a search engine, but wow there’s so much more.  There’s no way I could work at Google, I’d never see my family with the time I’d be absorbed on the internet.  It is just so over whelming, and it certainly isn’t getting any simpler or easier to grasp.  Imagine what our little kids will be doing as teenagers and adults… (And what they are already doing… scary!).

Wow, when will it stop? I’m starting to understand the phrase “Google is the new Microsoft”. What will they bring out next?  I loved the Google Book Search.  I already got hooked looking up some of the topics I’m interested in.