‘What’s Up? Podcast’ No. 6 – Transcript
[ mp3 audio file | File size: 6.66mb | Duration: 16:25 ]
Hey … WHAT’S UP??? There’s a new thinking about content, communication, expression and interaction on the internet and it’s called “WEB 2.0.†That’s what’s up!
Welcome everyone to episode number 6 of English Teacher John’s ‘What’s Up? Podcast.’ Hey, guess what? I’m John and I’m your host. And I’m also the host of the English Teacher John Show and the AdventurePod English podcast.
I think you guys know that I like to work with and talk about computers and the internet so let’s talk about an important new school of thought about the internet. It’s called WEB 2.0 and maybe you’ve heard this relatively new term. Maybe you already know something about WEB 2.0.
WEB 2.0 is really a new way to think about and use the internet. Have you noticed all these new websites where you can actually CONTRIBUTE to the site? YOU can write a message or comment; YOU can send your photos or videos; YOU are actually the author of some of the content on other people’s or companies’ websites. Maybe you’ve posted a message on someone’s blog, edited or added an article to WIKIPEDIA, or you have some of your photos on FLICKR, where you and others can tag the photos and do other creative things. More and more websites are open to modification and enhancement by the general public. Well, that’s the READ/WRITE World Wide Web. Yes, the READ/WRITE World Wide Web and that’s what WEB 2.0 is all about. I think it’s pretty cool.
Maybe it’s helpful to look at what people commonly consider to be WEB 1.0 which was the first generation of content on the World Wide Web. And, by content, we mean the actual THINGS – articles stories and other text; photos and other images, messages, videos; music and other audio files – all of this is called content. It’s the stuff that people create and then upload to websites.
During the WEB 1.0 phase of the World Wide Web, many people had websites with some HTML pages and they periodically went in and changed the pages to update the content. Viewers or consumers of their pages – the people who LOOKED at these webpages – were PASSIVE, which means that they couldn’t actually contribute anything to someone else’s webpages or website. It was often ONE-WAY communication, and quite frankly, it was pretty boring.
Well, that was then, and this is now. Web 2.0 is a new way of thinking about the purpose of the internet, and it’s also all of the tools and techniques for allowing two-way interaction to happen. It’s a system where the general public can not just LOOK AT the information on the web, but actually CONTRIBUTE their thoughts, ideas and creativity to the web … whether you have your own website OR NOT!!
RSS technology – that’s R-S-S – is a big part of this system and maybe you’ve heard that term. RSS is a system where grassroots publishers, or anyone, can regularly provide new content and, with something called an RSS FEEDREADER or NEWSREADER, you can be made aware of the new content promptly, very quickly. And you can view the new content almost immediately. It might be a news story, blog message, a new piece of music, a new podcast, new photos posted on your friends website, a new entry in your frappr map. Hey it could be just about anything that’s been added or updated.
Isn’t it a great concept! We’re all PUBLISHERS! No more sitting back while relatively few publishers inform us of the news, ideas and opinions of the day. WE can express ourselves, get heard, and listen to more ideas and opinions from real people around the world. Ah yes, good stuff, and I really believe it is the WAVE OF THE FUTURE.
If you want to see some real examples of WEB 2.0 things, take a look at FLICKR (that’s F-L-I-C-K-R) or better yet, set up your own FLICKR account and send in your photos. If your friends have an RSS READER, then they can be easily notified if you add new photos to your FLICKR account.
There’s also YOUTUBE.com (that’s Y-O-U-T-U-B-E). With YOUTUBE, you can send videos – your homemade videos – onto a kind of public website. And your friends and other people around the world can look at them; they can add tags. You can look for example for all videos with a tag of ‘ESL’ or ‘hiking’, or all videos with a tag of ‘comedy,’ for example.
I think you should try out an online RSS NEWSREADER, and you can do that at ROJO.COM (that’s R-O-J-O.com). Hey, all of these things are F-R-E-E, free! Go to a blog – there are now literally millions of them – and post a comment. You can even go to BLOGGER.com and CREATE YOUR OWN BLOG. Write about your dreams, your opinions, your passions. If you need help with software or hardware, or other things, go to a FORUM or HELP FORUM or TECH FORUM and post a question. It seems there are always helpful people out there ready to answer your question!
I know that MYSPACE.com (M-Y-S-P-A-C-E.com) is really a popular site these days, especially for teenagers and other young people. I don’t know much about MYSPACE, but I think you can post your photos, messages, and chat with others and it’s a way to connect and share yourself with your group of friends, or the whole world.
I just listened to a couple of podcasts where newspaper companies are using CITIZEN JOURNALISTS to write and improve the local news. Hey, those newspapers really do GET IT. They’re getting stories and information just from regular people. It’s great!
Well, you can’t talk about WEB 2.0 without talking about WIKIPEDIA (W-I-K-I-P-E-D-I-A). And, maybe many of you know about WIKIPEDIA. Wikipedia is the online encyclopedia where YOU can edit the information. Do you know something special about the mountain range near your hometown? Or some special food from your region? Put it into WIKIPEDIA and be a part of the collaborative learning, and collaborative sharing, and collaborative intelligence movement that really is a basis for Web 2.0. Sure, the information may not always be perfect, but can you name any source that gives perfectly accurate information that everyone can agree on? Hmm …
WIKIPEDIA and this kind of editable webpage or group of webpages is called a WIKI (that’s spelled W-I-K-I) and it’s gaining popularity for COLLABORATIVE projects – group projects where any member can edit the information in their own time. Are you and your brothers and sisters planning your big family reunion picnic? Hey, create a wiki and use it as the place where you and your siblings can go in anytime and add to the ideas, add details, edit, change, modify, improve. As the ideas come to you, you can just go into the wiki and make the changes. For a lot of collaborative projects – people working together – I think a wiki is easier and more efficient than emailing back and forth.
What else is connected to Web 2.0? Well, there are webcasts and podcasts and video podcasts. With live webcasts, you can use SKYPE to call in to a live INTERNET RADIO SHOW and talk to the show host and guests. I sometimes listen to a WEBCAST called EDTECHTALK and it’s a once a week live broadcast with educators talking about education technology. And do you know what … ? They WANT people to call in and give comments and ask questions. Usually, webcasts are then recorded, and you can download the podcast and listen to it even if you missed it live.
It’s interactive, it’s exciting, and it’s Web 2.0. And, this podcaster thinks it’s going to be a very positive force in the future.
There are plenty of other Web 2.0 sites to look at. There’s FRAPPR.com (F-R-A-P-P-R) where you can create a group and then view your group members hometowns on a nice map, and also you can send messages and share photos. If you’re there, check out FRAPPR’s ‘englishteacherjohngroup.’
Well, about all of this read/write internet and Web 2.0 and contributing and sharing, Please don’t forget, whatever content you contribute to many of these sites is VIEWABLE BY EVERYONE IN THE WORLD WHO HAS AN INTERNET CONNECTION. Yes, with all of the benefits of this new kind of web, there are also some privacy and other serious issues to think about. So, communicate and share yourself, but be aware and be smart about it.
Well, I think that’s enough about WEB 2.0 for now. What do you think? Is it exciting, empowering, wonderful or … nothing special, no big deal, another way that people just waste too much time on the internet. Well, maybe it’s all of that.
The transcript to this podcast is on our My English Blog and I’ll post links to all of the websites that I talked about today. Also, don’t forget to check out all of our audio and video podcasts at English teacher john dot com. Hey, I’d love to get your comments about this podcast. What do you think about Web 2.0? What do you think about any of the topics we talk about? Well, please write us! Our email is podcast -AT- etj.com. Thanks for listening. I am outta here! Bye bye.
Let’s listen to the “Red Hot Boogie†by Mofessor from the Pod Safe Audio.com.
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LINKS
flickr.com
youtube.com
blogger.com
rojo.com
myspace.com
wikipedia
frappr.com
edtechtalk
skype
