I thought the program was very well designed and structured to give a valuable and comprehensive overview of Web 2.0 applications. The program was informative and insightful while maintaining fun and humourous aspects. I am currently finishing a Grad. Dip. in Info. Management and Systems at Monash University and this short course has enhanced my understanding of Web 2.0 and other concepts. I think this course is a significant and useful Professional Development activity for Librarians and Teachers.

The ‘World EBook Fair site’ demonstrates that it is possible to own your own library with the opportunity to download up to one million ebook files. The main source is ‘Project Gutenberg’ that provides over one million electronic books and intends digitizing more. Twenty-five thousand of these books are in the public domain and available for free. There are also many other sites providing free access to download ebooks. LibriVox provides free audiobooks that are in the public domain provided by ‘Project Gutenberg’, these can be accessed in mp3 or podcast format.

‘Second Life’ is now responsible for many trends in education. Universities, Colleges, and Schools, or any other type of learning platform can own, rent or lease an island or other form of virtual space as a venue for educational purposes. For instance, the ‘Second Life Educators Wiki’ is a temporary free plot of land to use for a classroom via any Campus. Many campuses and organisations own virtual land space at ‘Second Life’ for educational purposes. Many libraries are using ‘Second Life’ to provide a facility for patrons to try out new technology, to interact, to explore different locations, and for other general experimentation.

The podcast is a very useful way to transmit audio and video broadcasts, particularly in its potential for teaching and learning. I am a distance student, studying at the moment, and I subscibe on a regular basis to podcasts of lectures, and I rely on podcasts as an essential tool for learning. I explored TeacherTube’ and found it difficult to find a video worth adding from this particular site. I was struggling to find any good content at this site. This is not to say all YouTube videos are not worth adding or useful. I found the ‘Conan the Librarian’ and ‘March of the Librarians’ amusing, but ‘Medieval IT Help Desk’ was the most amusing of them all. The ‘Library 2.0 Manifesto’ is very hip and sets the benchmark for future information managers. All these websites would be appropriate and interesting if they were applied to library websites.

The wiki is a great platform where people can share ideas with each other. I like the sense that the wiki is available to anyone willing to add, or edit, and contribute to a given topic. The wiki is an interesting way to interact and communicate ideas on a given topic. Within libraries and school, the use of the wiki can facilitate any application involving the transmission of information or social interaction. Wikis encourage the use of active participation and collaboration.
Well, I explored ‘Rollyo’ and created an account for myself. I also created a ‘searchroll’ called ‘bossanova’ that linked to a website on that topic, and added the searchroll to my blog. The ‘Rollyo’ functioned in much the same way as ‘Del.icio.us’, in the sense that it is a tool for the organisation of URLs referring to specific websites. I found the ready-made searchrolls really useful. For example: Public Domain Book Search, Rare Book Library Search, Free Photos, and Quick Quotes.

In my view, the Web 2.0 movement, as a construct, appears to be an improved form, or refined form, or new technological development of what preceded it, which is generally referred to as Web 1.0. There is much debate in regards to what Web 2.0 really is and its usefulness. In my understanding, the Web 2.0 platform is an improvement in terms of usability, competency, and specialization. The major difference between the concept of Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 is that generally Web 1.0 represents ‘Web-as-information source’ compared to Web 2.0 as the ‘participatory web’ with a focus on collaboration and shared resources. In many ways, Web 2.0 signifies 2, as in 2-way communication whereby a user has more of an active role in the exchange of information. O’Reilly refers to Web 1.0 being represented by software company Netscape: Lotus, Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP; and Web 2.0 being represented by software company Google: eBay, Amazon, Napstar, and DoubleClick. It is no wonder that there is strong opposition to Web 2.0, particularly if it poses a threat to other organisation’s existence. Other Web 2.0 applications include: Podcasts, Wikis, Blogs, Wikipedia, Del.icio.us, MySpace, Flickr, Eventful, and YouTube.

I managed to create a ‘Del.icio.us’ account and explored the site, observing the comments added to bookmarks and the tags used to categorize references. My experience of the ‘Del.icio.us’ tool is a positive one. I think it is a very useful tool in creating bookmarks to be stored in one place, and to share and discover other web bookmarks. The ‘Del.icio.us’ tool has enormous potential for research assistance, primarily as a easy way to create bookmarks that can be accessed from any physical location, and as a means of sharing information with others.

I logged into ‘iGoogle’ and added the following gadgets to my: Google Map Search, Google Book Search, facebook, Google Docs, and also: Spider, Youtube, Lyrics Search, ABC News, Art of the Day, Book of the Day, and Buddhist Thought of the Day. I like iGoogle as a personalised Google page to add gadgets of personal interest. I also checked out the Youtube video ‘Working at Google’, and yes I would like to work at Google. It appears to be a very civilized, inspiring and agile place to work. At the moment, I have no suggestions or improvements for Google. Besides, the competiton for suggestions and ideas is with thousands of Google employees.

‘Google Book Search’ is a tool from ‘Google’ that searches the full text of books that have already been scanned, or digitised from many library collections. In ‘Google Book Search’, a user can search and find works that are a part of the public domain and other out of copyright material, then download them in PDF format. Libraries can use ‘Google Book Search’ to access books that they may not have as a part of their physical collection. The user can download the work and store it on a USB drive or print parts or the entire text. In this way, any library can access a huge collection of books without having to provide physical storage space.
Is Google the new Microsoft? Answer: Google appears to be a major threat to Microsoft. Google can provide the same services as Microsoft and more. However, at present, Microsoft has the monopoly in frequency of use and distribution.

I went to ‘Google Maps Australia’ and activated ‘Get directions’ in relation to the location of my home to my place of work. The relevant information was given immediately, this included sequential steps such as left or right, the distance in kilometres, and the time it would take to drive there in a car. I also viewed my house using the ‘Satellite’ function. It appears that it has not been updated for quite some time, as we have replaced the old roof shown with a new tin one since the satellite photograph was taken, and I no longer drive the car that is parked out the front of our house.