Bridgewater College: Academic Computing Weblog

Archive Index

CURRENT
INDEX

Web 2.0: BC-BBS & BC-MOO
Web 2.0: Defined
Web 2.0: Working Online with Documents

Response Form

4 February 2008, 9:30 p.m. FOR AN EXAMPLE OF A WEB 2.0 APPLICATIONS, play the presentation below and join the discussion on this page (see the response form below) or visit it at the Google Docs site.

http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=dg66ktjv_4dssmfcc3

So, go ahead. Share your thoughts--questions, experiences, or whatever.

29 January 2008, 11:21 a.m. WEB 2.0 AT BRIDGEWATER COLLEGE? While college courses may not be perceived as a hot-bed of Web 2.0 activity, for many years Bridgewater College has had social networking capabilities for use with its courses.

What is Web 2.0? As many have pointed out, the definition is many-sided and ill-defined. A staff writer at InformationWeek put it this way on September 18, 2006, and things are not much clearer now.

A universally agreed-upon definition hasn't yet arisen. Presented with the question, programmers will launch into long-winded explanations that include terms like Ajax and Web services. Microsoft haters will say it replaces the desktop as a platform for computing. Marketers will emphasize the richness of the user experience. The digerati--technology-oriented yuppies who work in San Francisco and New York brick lofts and are as addicted to buzzwords as they are to Peet's coffee--will go on about wikis and mash-ups and memes.

Here's my plain-vanilla definition: Web 2.0 is all the Web sites out there that get their value from the actions of users.

Wikipedia gives a more thorough exposure to the many facets and impreciseness of the term Web 2.0.

WEB 2.0 HAS ALREADY ARRIVED AT BRIDGEWATER COLLEGE. Bridgewater has not delved into web-based office productivity software, but we have been active in the area now often referred to as social networking. A decade ago, the BC-MOO (an educational virtual environment that is more than a chat space) came online. Around the same time, the BC-BBS was brought online. This gave faculty and the students in their classes a spot to hold threaded discussions.

With the introductions of these two entities, discussions of material presented in class and planning for group projects could move out of the classroom and the confines of the 50-minute class. Students could converse from dorm rooms to off-campus homes and at any time of the day or night.

Faculty wishing to explore or use either the BC-MOO or the BC-BBS should contact me by email or phone.

Response Form

Return to the AcadComp Homepage
Go to Academic Computing at Bridgewater College