WEB1.0 and W2.0: personal experience

Well. I’ll try and break the ice…

I saw the video twice: the second time I put out the 'soundtrack', ‘cause it got me a bit anguished.I know that’s the rhythm you can 'do' things on the Web (and in real life, too, nowadays), and I actually live that way, most time… but I can't stand it - every now and then.
Do you know “Money” by Pink Floyd? I’ve always loved it – yet, could never listen to it without feeling a bit … uneasy.

I met ICT when I was rather ‘old’: 35, more or less. I started with MSDOS – and almost gave up – but a couple of a young friends of mine told me I could do it, just needed newer, more up-to date tools.
When I attended SSIS I was ‘forced’ to get new hardware, software – and new competences.
I was obliged to work online weekly ( tasks, forum contribution, group work e- mails and messages on a not-always-perfectly- working CMS) : I wasn’t so willing to do it but I learnt how-to-do it and even if it wasn’t that easy at the beginning I gradually began even to enjoy it... And did my best to learn as much as I could. I spent a lot of my ‘night time’ (the only time left, having two children, a husband – a job) exploring – surfing – trying to understand what – when – how – who…on the Web. I learnt a lot, just from doing.
I didn’t know anything about the differences between WEB1.0 and WEB2.0 and somehow went through rather unaware from 1 to 2: a friend invited me to contribute to her blog, and I thought ‘why not? Let’s try and do it…’ (I create my own account, wrote a profile, ‘dive’ in…didn’t care I wasn’t really able to swim!) then my eldest son told me he had a blog and asked me whether I wished to have a look (I’m sure this was a ‘great honour’ – sort of letting me read a personal diary and asking me to give some kind of comment– yet, I didn’t thoroughly like what I read … and have always been very cautious, and careful in contributing..)
Then, last year I attended EPICT course and got a little deeper knowledge on the topic (I discovered Wikies and blogs were WEB2.0!) and found out there were lots of way to use and exploit blogs, e.g from a pedagogical point of view, involving both teachers and students (and even parents) into new communicative opportunities and new ways of sharing and building knowledge. Just have a look at http://www.edidablog.it/ and you’ll understand what I mean.

Anyway, the main difference I can see between W1.0 and W2.0 is that the latter allows and promotes the active creation and sharing of information and knowledge, on a ‘Web level’, while W1 was more like a huge library – and an even larger ‘market place’ – where you could find almost everything (if you know how and where to look for…) and could also come in as a ‘maker’, a creator, but you had actually little chance to interact with others – unless you joined a chat, or participated to some fora or CSM platforms (where most of these tools are present).
Moreover, if you wanted to be 'there', with your own website, you needed specific knowledge and competences, while if you want to start/create a blog you just have to follow a couple of simple directions - which doesn't absolutely means any blog will be a 'successful' one, or that it will last more than a couple of weeks: it simply means it's so much easier to 'be there', on the Web, than it was before.
I know there’s much more than this….just wished to give some starting hints for further discussion…
Next time, if you are interested, I’ll tell you about the ‘module project’ which my EPICT online group and I proposed as regards the ‘pedagogical use’ of a blog…
Hope I wasn’t such a bore,

Luv,

Dani