3. Web 2.0 vs. Web 1.0

Before starting with my reflections, I must come clear about something. When I first listen to professor Izquierdo introducing the topic, I had not ever heard about something such as a number of “Webs”. I thought that the term was just that, a term related to the Internet. After the class, I was super happy to have learnt about such an interesting topic. It just came to my mind that life is a matter of development and evolution, but for someone as hippy as I am, tech evolution goes just too fast to stopping smelling the flowers and plunge into a speedy world. Anyways, I got interested I looked for further information about the different Webs. Let’s start with Web 1.0 to better understand what the others have become nowadays.

Web 1.0 was the term used between 1991 and 2003 to refer to the state of the World Wide Web. It is one-way flow of information through websites which contained "read-only" material for the user. In a few words, Web 1.0 is a retronym which refers to any website design style used before the advent of the Web 2.0 phenomenon.

Since 2004, the term Web 2.0 is the one used to describe those changes that made the Internet the way it is today. The shift from Web 1.0 to Web2.0 can be seen as a result of technological refinements and the evolvement of the behavior of the users.
2.0 sites are interactive and dynamic and the “readers” become a part of the site, because information and opinions can be shared among the creator and/or visitor(s) of the sites. Moreover, people are able to interact with other users with messages, chats, chat rooms or e-mails, being able even to share the content of websites. Some examples of the Web 2.0 phenomenon are social networking sites as facebook, second life, twitter, youtube, blogs, etc.
After this class, we had the opportunity to create our own static website, a professional one on Wordpress. The experience was enriching, amazing and fun. Now I am “professionally” on the net.

Take a look by clicking on Beatriz Peñín's professional site.

Finally, I should say that all these advances are being today the matter of study for many researchers and experts on education, who are definitely interested in how useful are all these new tools and how they can be used to enhance education.

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_1.0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retronym
http://www.moveo.com/data/White_Papers/GettingThere_Dave_103006.pdf
Thomas Greene, Larry Landweber, George Strawn (2003). A Brief History of NSF and the Internet. http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/news/03/fsnsf_internet.htm.