It780 Course Reflection

At the end of this semester, I found that time flies so fast….

I am so glad that I took this course IT780, it was this seminar that offered me the chance to know more about the web 2.0 applicants: Blog, Podcasting, Mobile Web Site, Wiki, Ning, VoiceThread, Slideshare and many other new technologies in the instructional technology area.

            First, I begin to know these tools in Web 2.0. Web 2.0 hints at an improved form of the World Wide Web. It includes but not limited in weblogs (blogs), wikis, podcasts, RSS feeds (and other forms of many-to-many publishing), social software, and web application programming interfaces (APIs) provide enhancements over read-only websites. These are also the main components of Web 2.0. Put the definition into simple, Web 2.0 is the newer generation of internet which allows all the people who are involving into the internet to contribute to the internet through the internet is getting richer and richer. That is to say users can not only ready but also write into the internet.

            To be honestly, I know blog, wiki and some other components, however, I do not have a systematic knowledge of these tools. Furthermore, I did not think about the development of the internet and either, did not think about the differences of the Web 1.0 and Web 2.0.

            Second, I get to know the usage of these tools in the education through the learning of this course. Knowing a tool does not mean know how to use it, of course, does not mean how to use it in education. In fact, we even experienced using some tools in this course. We use the Ning for delivering this course and blog was also used for knowing some new tools. Furthermore, the discussions are always focusing the usage of these tools in education. So through this course I gained a general idea about these tools in education and I think it must help with my work in the future.

            Third, the way to knowing more in this area. Another important thing I learned in this course is that I learned the way how to know a new tool and use it into my work. Not all the knowledge is from classroom. Nowadays we have to learn how to update the knowledge to fit the quick development of education, especially in the instructional technology area. Getting online, learning through discussion, and learning through these tools are very important way to gain new knowledge. That is these tools can not only be used for our work, education and also can be used for updating our own knowledge.

In fact, what I learned in this class is only part of the whole Web 2.0. There are always more are waiting. We are learning Web 2.0 now, however, some are talking about Web 3.0 now. So as soon as we get into this area, only thing we can do is keeping running.