English and ICT

Working with Web 2.0

What do we mean by Web 2.0 and what role does it play in our lives?

We begin by asking student teachers to look at a definition of the characteristics of Web 2.0 (below) and then to match these up with their own experience of using new technology in everyday life. We find it useful to assume that not all of us use new technology in the same ways – that just like the pupils they meet in schools, student teachers will have different attitudes and experiences towards things like social networking, and photo-sharing.

Activity summary – Thinking about Web 2.0

Characteristics of Web 2.0

Web 2.0 is best described as a developing trend or attitude in internet-based applications. In order to capture the essence of Web 2.0 it is useful to refer to four characteristic features – although they might not always be present, they give a flavour of these new developments.

1. Presence – Web 2.0 spaces encourage users to develop an active presence through an online identity, profile or avatar. This presence is recognisable by others but may develop over time. Active presence is recognised by updating, interacting and in some cases alerting to show that a user is online. Many users develop a sense of self across a number of spaces – such as through Facebook, Twitter or in eBay or YouTube.


2. Modification – Web 2.0 spaces usually allow a degree of personalisation such as through the design of the user's home page, profile and personal links, or through the creation of an on-screen avatar. Web 2.0 spaces may also allow users to link one application to another or import objects and features from one space to another – such as embedding images from Flickr in a wiki, or a YouTube video in Facebook and so on. This kind of transportability allows the development of an online presence across spaces as referred to in the previous point.


3. User-generated content – Web 2.0 spaces are based upon content that is generated within and by the community of users rather than provided for the community by the site itself. So YouTube provides a template and plenty of online space for its users, but it is the users who supply the videos, comments and other content. This, of course, does not mean that participation is not possible if users do not generate content. For example, there are many users of YouTube who do not upload videos or comment on the site – but they may embed video codes from the site onto their blogs, or they may cite URLs in their MySpace, for example. In this way Web 2.0 users are producers as well as consumers.


4. Social participation – Web 2.0 spaces provide an invitation to participate. This derives, in part, from the above three points. Rating, ranking and commenting are all ways of giving and receiving feedback and developing content, whereas features such as friend lists, blogrolls and favourites become public displays of allegiance. Just as user-generated content makes us both producers and consumers, so with social participation we are simultaneously both performers and audience.

(Adapted from Davies& Merchant, 2009)