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I am a graduate student in the Instructional Technology Department of Utah State University.

This blog represents an assignment in a class about Distance Education. It discusses Web 2.0 as a current and emerging technology that is being used and has the potential to be used for distance education.

Web 2.0 is not really a technology but encompasses technology which is different than the technology that was introduced to the World Wide Web in its infancy and young years. Tim O'Reilly wrote a treatise about Web 2.0 that can be found hereWhat Is Web 2.0? There is another good write-up at Webmonkey.

This blog represents an overview of Web 2.0 and addresses the underpinnings of how we think about technology online. The new design patterns or business models that we encounter in Web 2.0 are what have made new technology fit so well into the halls of education.

It consists of things like blogs, wikis, podcasts, screencasts, vodcasts, and social software and any other new and emerging technology. O'Reilly explains that he noticed the difference after the dot-com debacle. Many companies died out and what remained did so because they changed the way they were doing things. O'Reilly identified Web 2.0 with some of the following terms: An attitude, not a technology; hackability; the long tail; perpetual beta; small things joined together loosely; trust your users; the right to remix "Some rights reserved"; play; software that gets better the more people use it;....

With the changes occurring in the World Wide Web, come changes in the way education is and will be offered.