Web 2.0 is essentially an increasing range of software that supports a variety of technologies for open and collaborative communication, learning and creativity. Discuss.  Web 2.0 offers a variety of ways to introduce new learning styles into the classroom. Web 2.0 allows students to actively engage with their learning, by collaborating and communicating with other members of the classroom. Web 2.0 is a creative way to adapt to the variety of learning styles of students and is fast becoming an important and vital aspect in the classroom. Web 2.0 is the second generation of web technologies that involve social networking sites, the use of Folksonomy and the introduction of collaboration and sharing between users (wikipedia, web 2.0, 2007).  Web 2.0 is a new and exiting way for people, especially students to use the Internet. Web 2.0 insists and encourages students to actively engage with their learning experience through the use of Blogs, Wiki’s and also employs the use of Folksonomy rather than the web 1.0 stage of taxonomy. Folksonomy is the method of creating tags to annotate and categorize content from the Internet (Pink, New York Times, 2005) and is a developed form of searching on the Internet. Sites such as Del.icio.us are important aspects of web 2.0 and the use of Folksonomy. Students need to research their topics and then post relative pages on this Web 2.0 page. Students can also gain access to other important information other students have researched. Web 2.0 is a collaborative online learning environment and students need to immerse themselves in the features to broaden their learning experience. In conjunction with the works and research of Piaget and Bruner, in regards to the constructivist theory, web 2.0 displays a strong connection with constructivism. Students when using web 2.0 must be active in their learning and research. The information should not just be handed to the students from the internet. Students must actively engage with the text they are reading, posting their own thoughts on the text in a blog or group collaboration site such as pbwiki. This process allows students to process the information and learn from each other. The use of blogs and Wiki’s in the classroom is revolutionary, but it is also the future. Education is leading towards the process of technology that incorporates collaborative group exercises and learning. The internet in education has become interactive and students along with teachers need to accommodate for this.  The use of web 2.0, unlike the normal classroom, offers a variety of educational pathways otherwise inaccessible to students and teachers. Web 2.0 is a more appealing pathway to educating students as it has the capabilities to attract more students to its opportunities. Web 2.0 addresses more features that Gardner regards as students multiple intelligences. Students no longer need to be subjected to boring lessons, where the only piece of technology is the light switch. Students now have an opportunity to use site such as you tube, Facebook and even MySpace as a way of educating themselves and others about the importance of their subject areas. Students learn differently as we all know, there are musical students, visual, kinesthetic, logical and linguistic learners and teachers need to be able to accommodate for all of these learning styles in an ideal lesson. However pens, paper and whiteboards do not and will not address all these types of learners, with web 2.0 however students will be able to learn their own way at their own pace. Instead of pushing one common way to learn onto students they are given the opportunity to find out how they learn best themselves and implement this into their learning activities.  Teachers are not, however becoming irrelevant as all of these technologies need a mediator and someone to bring the entire collaborative process together. Students know how to use social collaborative sites such as Facebook and MySpace however they need to be informed on how to use them educationally and gain the most out of the experiences of using these sites. Facebook and MySpace a perfect examples of how teachers can apply modern, social sites into the subject content area. Students need to be aware of all of the facilities that these sites have to offer. They offer immediate collaboration with their classmates, they allow other aides such as visual and musical stimulants for the learning experience and more importantly ALL of the students can access and contribute to the site and the information being applied. Students can immediately inform their classmates about new updated information or offer additional comments. Facebook and MySpace as educational aides is a way that web 2.0 is and can be introduced into the school environment with the greatest possible outcomes. Wiki’s  and blogs are being defined as the ‘online classrooms’ Blogs while more personal than Wiki’s allows a student a place on the internet where they can post their own personal opinions about topics, while also posting links to educational journals, websites and other important sites for their research process. Students will find the experience of an online blog interesting and rewarding. This blog is their own space and they are allowed the freedom to make it as creative as possible. While some students are not as creative as others, students are able to post written work, photos, videos, pod casts etc on their Blogs.  Wiki’s similarly to Blogs allow students their own space on the Internet to post educational information regarding their subject area. However while Blogs are usually done individually, the Wiki is a group collaborative activity and requires focused and equal group work application. The Wiki is a group of web pages produced by the students and requires a group effort to keep the Wiki updated with relevant information. Wiki employs a lot of the constructivism approach to its set up. It requires students to construct a site with the relevant information and therefore develop their current knowledge, building upon what they already know.   The Del.icio.us social book-marking site is an integral part of the web 2.0 experience. This site is the epitome of the web 2.0 experience for students as it employs many of the aspects that web 2.0 is developed upon. Del.icio.us is a website that uses Folksonomy as its main use, as opposed to the web 1.0 experience of taxonomy. Students need to ‘tag’ sites as their favorites and the most important part about this site, the fact that the students can collaborate and get information off each other, which is of course the main idea behind constructivism. Allowing students the freedom to explore their options for educational opportunities on the Internet and then gather the information in one place for others to see and use.    Web 2.0 allows students to become creative with the way that they use the Internet for educational purposes. Students no longer need to stop doing work once they leave the classroom. The most accessible classroom these days is in their own homes, or in their bags. The computer and the Internet has now become the classroom of the future and students will respond to this much better and gain more knowledge from its usage. Web 2.0 is the future for classroom activity and education as a whole. Students and teachers alike need to adapt to this change as it will bring the classroom into an important new age appropriation and will be vitally important for the years to come.Web 2.0 brings creativity to learning styles of students and is more adaptable for students who do not do as well in the current classroom and educational experience.By encouraging and insisting of students developing their own educational experience students will unknowingly be engaging in constructivism and a collaborative way of learning.                                

Web 2.0, wikipedia, 2007,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2

What is web 2.0? Tim O’Reilly, 2005 http://www.oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html