2.0

I found an inspiring article by Stephen Downes, from the National Research Council of Canada, about e-Learning 2.0, in accordance with the new movement Web 2.0, where users are becoming more and more the centre and main agent of what is happening on the web: they are acquiring the properties of communication networks.

I think maybe Tim Berners-Lee –the world wide web creator- could visualise this very nature of the web, from that original intention to create a collaborative medium for academic researchers working together at a distance. The Internet is achieving now its proper and unavoidable shape and nature. It shouldn’t be seeing as a medium any more, but just as a network –a "platform", Downes prefers- of interconnected powerful nodes. And every one of these nodes are users themselves, talking and listening and therefore creating, sharing, repurposing, distributing and even cataloguing contents. No intermediaries seem to be necessary. Who needs a journalist anymore? And even more...who needs a traditional teacher for getting access to knowledge, for building new knowledge with others, rather than blindly follow up a course topic or any assigned subject. That knowledge which is useful and meaningful to "my interest", right now, and for actual and immediate purposes.

Downes goes further when he says that we are at a social revolution, where openness is not only technological but even attitudinal: "sharing content is not considered unethical; indeed, the hoarding of content is viewed as antisocial...Information is something meant to be shared", he says. We could wonder if this is only a "trend for openness" due to and derived from innovation and fascination on the technological possibilities. Could this trend stay the same for longer? Well, the answer is as long as innovations on a natural open network itself are coming out...

I agree anyway with Downes: there is a revolution in the way we access and work with knowledge. I don’t know whether it is a social revolution yet, but some important impact is making on the way people understand power, since power more than ever is on their own hands. I connect with Downes when he writes: "In short, the structures and organization that characterized life prior to the Internet are breaking down... Consumers are talking directly to producers, and more often than not, demanding and getting new standards of accountability and transparency. Often, they inform the productive process itself, and in many cases, replace it altogether. Passive has become active. Disinterested has become engaged. The new Internet user may not vote, but that is only because the vote is irrelevant when you govern yourself".

All this stuff sooner or later, in more and more places, will become unavoidably true.

New challenges are in designing and using methodologies to help communication processes on this network to be meaningful rather than disperse or chaotic. I see such methodologies not only on virtual communities, but also in applications like weblogs, a "personal learning centre", where content is reused and remixed according to the user’s own needs and interests (as my original intention when creating management + ethics for e-learning purposes).

Related links

Stephen Downes on E-learn Magazine: E-learning 2.0
Stephen Downes weblog: OLDaily
[Tags]:Web 2.0,Controversy about our "Web 2.0" service mark (O'Reilly version),Web 2.0 trademark (George Siemmens comments),IT@Cork version (Tom Raftery's comments)