An emerging trend in Social Networking sites and Web portals is the opening up of their APIs to external application develop- ers. For example, the Facebook Platform, Google Gadgets and Yahoo! Widgets allow developers to design their own applications, which can then can be integrated with the platform and shared with other users. However, current APIs are targeted towards develop- ers with programming expertise and database knowledge; they are not accessible to a large class of users who do not have a programming/database background, but would nevertheless like to create new applications. To address this need, we have developed the AppForge system, which provides a WYSIWYG application development platform. Users can graphically specify the components of webpages inside a Web browser, and the corresponding database schema and application logic will be automatically generated on the fly by the system.
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The digital age has vastly expanded people’s access to all sorts of information and resources, including educational materials. The Internet has also fostered a new culture of sharing, one in which content is freely contributed and distributed with few restrictions. Indeed, the latest evolution of the Internet, Web 2.0, is creating a new kind of participatory medium that is ideal for encouraging multiple types of learning. Web 2.0 has blurred the line between producers and consumers of content and has shifted attention from access to information toward access to other people. New kinds of online resources — social-networking sites, blogs, wikis, and virtual communities — have allowed people with common interests to meet, share ideas, and collaborate in innovative ways.
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Under the term “Web 2.0” the Internet is currently going through a new growth phase where end users create content and communities are built for user interaction. One of these Web 2.0 services is Flickr, a photo-sharing platform that allows users to upload photos, tag, comment and add them to favourite lists and build a personal social network.
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Many IT organizations view the phrase Web 2.0 as either just marketing hype that is devoid of any meaning or they associate it exclusively with social networking sites such as MySpace. That’s understandable as Web 2.0 is not the same as a new protocol that has an associated RFC that spells out definitively what is and what is not included as part of the protocol. As a result, many concepts get lumped under the banner of Web 2.0. In one of the most insightful analyses of Web 2.0, Tim Reilly points out that Web 2.0 involves fundamentally new design patterns and business models and he compares companies that were successful with Web 1.0 with those companies that are leading the movement to Web 2.0.
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Web 2.0 is no longer just for techies and teenagers. Adults of all ages are beginning to appreciate the networking opportunities and social nature of Web 2.0. Business owners and executives from around the globe are using this group of technologies with increasing frequency, and they are planning on expanding their Web 2.0 capabilities into the future.
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During the past decade, a gap has appeared between higher education and the rest of the digital world. While academia has moved a great deal of content and activity into course management systems, the World Wide Web has developed a new architecture, usually dubbed “Web 2.0.” Around this time computer gaming has grown into a vital, global industry. Course management system(s) (CMS) have supported a very different world of computer­mediated communication, and nearly a decade of institutional and individual practice has deepened the difference. We argue that CMS are going to make some efforts to cross that chasm in the near future, but the overall gap is likely to persist.
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Over the past three years, Internet web sites have been evolving into a series of platforms organizing content and communications among individuals and organizations for the purpose of social networking. Sites like MySpace, YouTube and Wikipedia have shifted online activities from “browsing” to collaborating, interacting and personalizing. MySpace boasts over 100 million accounts, YouTube serves an average of 100 million video streams per day and Wikipedia contains over 1.7 million articles in English edited by users from all over the world. As a result, web design and organizational thinking in this new era needs to be more focused on building event-driven experiences, rather than simply designing information silos ammended with numerous hyperlinks. But how do consumers and businesses keep up with these changes and more importantly how do they exploit the new technologies in ways that benefit customers, employees, and even their industry? This issue of Educational Update is designed for that very purpose.
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The Skype software and services provide individuals with a new,secure and innovative way to communicate with other people using the Internet as the medium of transport for messages,whether they are voice calls,text messages or other forms of communication. Skype is the world decentralized telephony network,but it provides far more services than just voice calling that carried over the public Internet. By using a compact client program,which is available in versions for several popular computer platforms,a Skype user is able to send or receive text messages,hold voice calls and exchange data files with other persons.
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