Web 2.0 Online Collaboration (Public)

Slide 1: Web 2.0 Online Collaboration Collaborative Virtual Environments Daniel Livingstone

Slide 2: Web 2.0? Term coined by Tim O'Reilly (of O'Reilly books) in 2004 Not a new technology But may use new technlogies or solutions (c.f. AJAX) Cover all term for wide range of 'new' ways of using the web focussing on collaboration, sharing, creativity

Slide 3: Blogs - Review You have all been asked to create a blog. Why? * Reflective practice. What do you think of things... opinions and reasons * Progress reporting * Record links and 'found' things that you might want to revisit - or other people might want to see How much should you write? * I would suggest 1-3 entries per week. From 50 to 500 words per entry.

Slide 4: Blogs and RSS Reading 15 blogs time consuming Even just checking for updates when there are none! Aggregate all new updates with RSS readers RSS presents simplified content of web page without the formatting Eg: BBC News front page vs. BBC News front page RSS

Slide 5: Reading Blogs Keep up with all your colleagues using Google Reader / Bloglines One page to lookup for all updates - instead of dozens!

Slide 6: Some Tools for Online Collaborative Groupwork VLE / LMS - e.g. Blackboard or Moodle Using this already - forums etc. Want to look at other tech Blogs - Limited amounts of collaboration Wiki's Google Groups / Yahoo Groups Google Docs / Zoho Ning / ELGG

Slide 9: Also see: WikiSpaces - Free online wiki hosting No need to have your own server or install wiki software Supports WYSIWYG style editing - No need to learn peculiar WIKI markup languages

Slide 10: Wiki's For Collaborative Working Project homepage Can control access Who is able to read, who is able to edit Allow multiple contributors Talk pages allow discussion on content without changing it History stored - allowing all versions of a page to be viewed History also allows individual contributions to be seen

Slide 11: Google Groups / Yahoo Groups / etc. Some functionality based on previous generations of intranet/internet groupware Limited compared to 'true' groupware solutions c.f. Lotus Notes of over 10 years ago Google Groups features: Discussion forum (can use via email) Member lists/profiles File sharing 'Pages' - Online documents with collaborative editing and revision history

Slide 12: Office Tools Office Software is also often used for collaborative work Typical workflow: Someone edits document, enables change tracking Email to 2nd contributor Contributor makes edits, email back Original author checks edits, makes further revisions, emails back again etc., etc., ... Possibly replace email with online file store Still convoluted workflow

Slide 13: The End of Microsoft Office? Can Office be replaced by a suite of web- based applications? Google thinks so... Google Docs gives you web based word-processing, spread sheets and presentations. Add Google Calendar and Gmail against Microsoft Outlook, a web-page creator and blogs against Frontpage... And Google are not the only ones...

Slide 14: zoho.com

Slide 15: The Google Office Google Docs - http://docs.google.com Word processing, Spreadsheet, Presentation software All very limited functionality compared to MS Office But do somethings MS Office can't do! Print pdf files, ... Easy to share documents with others for collaborative editing - or to give an online presentation Multiple users can edit the one document at the same time! Google Calendar - http://www.google.com/calendar/ Allow you to publish your calendar (or only parts of it!) making your diary/availabilty checkable online EXAMPLE Can view multiple calendars in one view e.g. Personal, work, colleagues, public events One member of staff uses this to show football fixtures alongside his own diary!

Slide 17: Social Networks Social Networks also have interesting features for collaboration... can go beyond lists of friends! Messaging, updates, content sharing Information about group members Can add custom applications e.g. Updates from Blogs, Calendars etc Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Orkut, etc... Only useful when information can sensibly be made public Downsides of Social Networking? Many studies show people are unware of how public information really is... and act as if they are sharing with only their friends. What are the risks?

Slide 18: Custom Social Networks Can Social Networks be put to more purposeful use? NING Create your own social network online Theme, brand a social network and invite people in Can control membership (optional) No costs, but adverts placed on pages E.g. Commercial: Dub Magazine Education: ICT in Education ELGG Open source social networking software Theme, brand and customise social network Host on own servers, free software Could add adverts for own revenue E.g. Commun-IT - Social network for Ontario Educators

Slide 19: And there's more... Twitter Online status updates Can update from mobile phone Reported value: Instant contacts, updates, meetings Podcasts iTunes U YouTube YouTube University! http://webcast.berkeley.edu/ MIT OpenCourseware gave large boost to open education resources trend OpenLearn in the UK

Slide 22: Behind the Scenes AJAX Asynchronous Javascript and XML Web development technique for web apps Make web pages feel more responsive by exchanging small amounts of data with server behind the scenes, so the entire web page does not have to be reloaded each time the user requests a change. Increase the web page interactivity, speed, and usability. Not a technology in itself, but a term that refers to the use of a group of technologies, See e.g.: Script.aluco.us Ruby on Rails

Slide 23: And there's more... Slideshare Scribd flickr digg and on and on and on... As in this portentious video

Slide 24: What to do with all of this? This lecture has listed a range of web-based collaborative software applications You should use some of these for your group project Which ones? And why? One not on this list? Group should make sensible use of these technologies... What information be public? Private workspaces? Ease of use vs. richness of applications Creation of web-based resources as part of & in support of your class project (more on this later!) will be graded