learning 2.0

Welcome!

Congratulations and welcome to all of you who have chosen to participate in this program and who are on your way to developing an understanding of the Web 2.0 tools readily available in today’s society.
Each week we will be sending out an email with explanations, encouragement and sites of interest.
To begin, click on the heading of each week, or the underlined link, to take you to the activities page. There, you will need to follow the steps to complete the week's 'thing'.

The Program

Learning 2.0 is an online, self paced learning program designed to help you discover web 2.0 technologies freely available on the internet.

The program was developed by Helene Blowers from the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County. She has licensed the program under Creative Commons and it is now used by libraries around the world.

Equipment Needed

Computer with Internet access
Sound card to listen to podcasts
Headphones if you plan to complete the program in a public area
Quicktime (normal on most computers)

Important!
You will also be creating a few accounts during this program and it is suggested you keep a record of all your username/logins and passwords, it can get a little overwhelming.
You can write these down, or take a screen shot (Ctrl + Print Scrn buttons then paste into Word or Paint and save) of registration pages.

Click on the link below for Activity #1 to get started!

Week 1

#1 About this program

#2 Create a Blog

#3 Let us know!

#4 What is this Web 2.0 business?

Week 2

#5 Check out...Google Docs

#6 Check out...Google Maps

#7 Check out...Google Books

Week 3

#8 Setup an iGoogle home page!

Week 4

#9 Explore Virtual Worlds

Week 5

#10 Have fun with online image generators!

#11 Create an online library collection with LibraryThing

Week 6

#12 Store photos online with Flickr

Week 7

#13 Get social with...MySpace

#14 Get social with...Facebook

Week 8

#15 What is an RSS feed?

#16 Stay informed!

Week 9

#17 Organise yourself with Delicious

Week 10

#18 What is a wiki?

#19 Create your own search engine with Rollyo

Week 11

#20 Listen to some Podcasts

#21 Stay tuned with YouTube

Week 12

#22 & #23 Discover...Ebooks & Audiobooks

Conclusion & Feedback

#1 About this program

Check out the links below and read a little about the original program.

Stephen Abrams on 23 things

About the Program - Helen Blowers' site

Why blog?

People blog because they want to share with others. They may share their opinions, rants on particular topics, or news from a holiday. They may even have a professional blog where they share views on their industry, or they may have a blog all about their pet. When you're blogging, you can adopt any persona you like. Some people have written from a cat's perspective.

Many companies have an 'official' blog, where they release news about the company and views about the industry. Some blogs are highly successful due to the personality of the blog's author. Some blogs have multiple authors. Blogs can be used very effectively for educational purposes: a shared project by students can be created and showcased on a blog; teachers can post notes, lectures, FAQs and various resources on a central blog for their students.

This program is based upon blog entries and during its course, you'll need to write a blog post about each 'thing' you complete. That will let the administrator/s track your progress. You should also think about the audience for your blog: can anyone read your blog - will you show it to your family, your friends, or will you just keep it to yourself? Will you want to continue blogging after you've finished? Have a look at the links at the end of this post for ideas and inspiration.

Blogging in Plain English - educational video

Blogger Buster - a blog site with tutorials and tips for using Blogger

Dummies Guide To Blogger - another blog site with tips for using Blogger

#2 Create a blog

Listen to audio about blogs

There are many blogging sites available but for this program we will be using the Google platform Blogger to create our blogs.

#2 Create a blog

1. Go to the Blogger site.

2. Click on CREATE AN ACCOUNT. Here you are required to setup a Google account. If you already have a Google account, you will be able to sign in first at the top of the page, in which case you will go straight to step 4.

3. Here you can create a Google account using ANY email address. You may want to create a Gmail address specifically for the program, or use an alternative. Follow the steps and continue to the next page.

*Make sure you write down your login and password*

4. Select a blog title and blog address (URL). The blog title will display at the top of your blog, and the blog address will be the web address used to locate your blog online. This can be something as simple as your name ie. http://fionasblog.blogspot.com or something completely unrelated http://purplepolkadots.blogspot.com. Once you've chosen your blog name and URL, click on Continue.

*Be sure to also write down or bookmark your blog address*

5. Choose a template! This is something you can change later (there are actually more options when you change it later).

6. Start blogging! (It's also a good idea to bookmark your blog to your favourites so you can find it easily later!) You are required to submit a blog post for each activity throughout the program. To assist the tracking process, please include the task number or name in the Title field of each blog post.

7. Write your very first blog post! You may want to introduce yourself or your persona, or explain what your blog is for. When viewing your blog there is always the "New Post" option in the top right hand corner so you can update your blog!

Need some help? Check out these links:

#3 Let Us Know!

Register your Blog - Why register your blog?

To enable the administrator/s to track your progress throughout the program, you need to tell us the URL of your blog! Simply use this online form - it may be simpler to cut and paste the URL from the address bar of your browser when you're viewing your blog.

(If you're having trouble accessing the online form, you can email your blog URL/address to learning@yprl.vic.gov.au)

As you address each exercise please make this the title of your post. eg. # 5 Google Docs, #12 Flickr etc..

Posting to your blog: Feel free to update your blog posts with your thoughts on the program and the things you are discovering. Your feedback is welcome throughout the entire course, and your thoughts and experiences will be helpful for other participants in the program.

Once you have registered your blog using the online form it will be listed in the Participants Blog List on the right hand side of the program blog. The participants’ blog is a good place to gain inspiration and support each other via the comments section in the individual blogs.

#4 Web 2.0

What is Web 2.0?

"Web 2.0" refers to the second generation of web development and web design that facilitates information sharing and collaboration on the World Wide Web. The advent of Web 2.0 led to the development and evolution of web-based communities, hosted services, and web applications. Examples include social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs, mashups and folksonomies.

The term is now closely associated with Tim O'Reilly because of the O'Reilly Media Web 2.0 conference in 2004. Although the term suggests a new version of the World Wide Web, it does not refer to an update to any technical specifications, but rather to cumulative changes in the ways software developers and end-users utilize the Web. Whether Web 2.0 is qualitatively different from prior web technologies has been challenged by World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee who called the term a "piece of jargon". [courtesy Wikipedia]

#4 Web 2.0

Read through a few of the opinions on the different Web 2.0 movements provided above, or search for blogs about Web 2.0, then write an entry in your blog on something you have learnt about the Web 2.0 movements.

#5 Google Docs

Listen to audio here

I hope all of you know about the famous Google search engine, but did you know there is a complete suite of Google products that are available for the everyday user? These products include gmail (an online email application), Google docs and spreadsheets, Google maps, Google calendar and Google talk just to name a few. In the past few years Google has also bought out successful web companies such as YouTube and Picasa to add to their suite of products. Check out the full list of Google products and services.

In the last few years, there have been many reports that Google has become the new microsoft. Even if this is the case, Google is offering web based applications at a minimal cost to the user (usually only exposure to some advertisements) and the new generation is utilising these applications more and more everyday. This week's task will introduce you to some Google applications including Google Maps, Google Docs and Spreadsheets and Google Book Search. Next week you will be able to join these applications together on your new iGoogle homepage.

One major benefit to web-based applications is that they eliminate the need to worry about different software versions or file types as you email documents or move from PC to PC. Another bonus is that they easily accommodate collaboration by allowing multiple users to edit the same file (with versioning) and provide users the ability to easily save and convert documents as multiple file types (including HTML and pdf). And, you can even use many of these tools, such as Zoho Writer and Google Docs (Formerly known as Writely) to author and publish posts to your blog.

It's this type of integration with other Web 2.0 tools that also makes web-based apps so appealing. For this discovery exercise, you are asked to take a look at a web-based word processing tool called Google Docs, create a simple document and then post about your discoveries in your blog.

#5 Google Docs

1. You will be able to use the Google account you created originally to setup your blog to use Google Docs. (Or use your Gmail account details, if you have them)

2. Explore the site and create a test document or two.

3. Try out Google Docs features and create a blog post about your discoveries.

Also...

Other great sites for online file storage including video are Nomadesk and Box.net , or you can also explore Zoho Writer.

#6 Google Maps

Information on Google
Take a tour of Google Maps.

#6 Google Maps

Go to Google Maps Australia and find the some places; your home, place of work, favourite bakery etc. Get directions from your home to your work.
Create a blog post telling the world about Google maps. What did you think of Google maps?

Also...

Whereis.com.au has a step-by-step direction breakdown if you want to know how to get from point A to point B. It also allows you to show parking and other landmarks.