Final Reflection on Teaching and Learning with Web 2.0 tools

First let me say I thought knew a little a bit about Web 2.0 apps.  My experience was with Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia, and just recently I started to dabble a little bit in Twitter. However, in the last six weeks, I have learned and experienced so much more with these and other Web 2.0 tools that I definitely want to teach what I have learned.  My thirst to learn more about Web 2.0 applications is even greater now.  These tools afford the teacher, students and teams the ability to remotely share, communicate, contribute, and collaborate on class assignments and projects.  In today’s connected environment, students absolutely must learn how to work and collaborate remotely with geographically separated team members.  The knowledge and ability to use and educate others on how to use these and other  Web 2.0 tools is essential to helping our students be competitive in today’s connected work environment.  One of the tools that really impressed me was Google Docs.  The ability of me and my team members to collaborate on a document in real-time was pretty amazing.  The capability of this tool to allow me and my team members to actually see each other’s edits on the same document, while we were working from different locations was fantastic!  I have collaborated with teams at work on documents using Microsoft SharePoint, but I could not see the edits being done in real-time.  This one feature that I will definitely look for in future technologies that I teach.  The ability to collaborate in real-time.  One of the pitfalls that I did make note of is that in order to use these great tools, you have to have the hardware that has the capacity to use Web 2.0 tools.  This starts with an internet connection with enough bandwidth, an up-to-date commuting device (desktop, laptop, tablet, and smartphone) and an updated web browser.  Another pitfall, which members of my generation might find intimidating is a working knowledge of web security.  More often than not, people who don’t use or delve into Web 2.0 tools, don’t do so because of the insecurity of exposing too much information.  However, I have learned from this class that there are ways to use these tools and still maintain a secure environment.      

Social Bookmarking

In order to talk about my experiences with Social Bookmarking, I believe it is prudent that I first talk about my experiences with electronic bookmarking in general.  I began using the bookmarking feature while doing web searches a number of years ago.  If I found a site that was interest or relevant to the topic (personal, professional or educational), I would click bookmark, and bookmark it.  If there was a bookmark I wanted to share with someone, I would go to my list of bookmarks and send the link to whoever I was sharing the site with.  Recently (the past year or so), I learned that I could link my bookmarks between my differing devices using my Microsoft account.  This was great until I recently found out the hard way that when I delete a bookmark on one device, it deleted that bookmark on all of the devices (or at least in my experience).  With this class (and an experience in another class), I am more apt to use Social Bookmarking instead of bookmarking site on my local desktop.  Social Bookmarking has definite advantages such as the ability to share your bookmarks as a “social commodity” (something or someone that is useful or valued).  Additionally, social bookmarks are saved and stored offsite, which means that if your local desktop crashes or you accidentally delete your bookmark (as I have), you bookmarks are saved on another source.  I will be using Social Bookmarking extensively from now on.

Vanity Search 2.0

See, this is my new, educated vanity search.  My previous vanity search for David M Tyler yielded hundreds of David M Tyler(s), however none of them were me.  When I say hundreds, literally, hundreds.  They came from every walk of life and time continuum.  There were doctors, lawyers, authors, criminals (oh no, not criminals named David M Tyler). They were every race, creed and color. Some were born long ago, in a land far, far, away.  Some have since past on.  Some were very young, some were old.  But none of them were me. Then I did a search using my web alias, dtyler9211 and "EUREKA" there I am, alone, by myself.  So yes, this class has changed my footprint in the virtual world.  My online presence is out there among all of the hundreds of other David M Tyler(s), but as dtyler9211.  Yippee!