1) Web 2.0 technologies are being used in limited ways at Williams College, primarily through wikis for documentation and collaboration, blogs, and social networking. 2) Students widely use social networking, messaging, and video sharing, while administrative uses include wikis, blogs, and podcasting. 3) The document discusses specific Web 2.0 technologies of interest like Google Docs, Flickr, and SlideShare, and obstacles to greater adoption like support, culture, and reliability questions.

1. W.B.W. Web 2.0 at Williams Web 2.0 and its implications for resources and services in IT and Libraries, more or less Chris Warren cwarren@williams.edu ficial.wordpress.com Database Integration Specialist Office for Information Technology Williams College

2. What's the current status of web 2.0 at Williams? How is it being used?

3. Overview Overall, limited... BUT People have really embraced the wiki (Confluence) for documentation and collaboration among controlled user groups We’re continuously experimenting Individuals and small groups participate in web 2.0 technologies and activities outside their official capacities For students, web 2.0 is simply 'the web'

4. Student web 2.0 Hardware : laptops, cellphone, wi-fi Functionality and Tools : social networking - Facebook - almost everyone long video - P2P - unknown short video - YouTube - unknown messaging - cellphone text messaging, and various IM - most blogging - various (about 1% of student body, as best can be told) other - unknown - unknown

5. Administrative web 2.0 wiki for documentation (shared for reading) and collaboration (private) OIT security blog, for announcements / alerts podcasting for Public Affairs, for special needs Sustainability blog, for discussion / dissemination wiki-ish back-end for library and some of WWW

6. Academic web 2.0 blogs for classes Wikipedia as a resource (de facto, not encouraged / endorsed) Second Life as a platform (Art Mecho) and an object of study (the social and philosophical aspects) our wiki, for closed discussion and collaboration pod- and vod-casting by some individual professors

7. Alumni and community web 2.0 social networking on Facebook et al professional networking on Linked In et al Ephblog WSO forums Willipedia - the WSO wiki YouTube Flickr individual blogs

8. Web 1.7 - not quite web 2.0 Tools having some aspects of web 2.0, but falling short Blackboard Digital Storytelling workshops Daily Messages email tool data publication sites Master Calendar Peoplesoft Self Service OIT Workshops Signup Open Seats tool / service ContentDM

9. Under the hood The technologies of web 2.0, even if not used for that advanced CSS AJAX data driven open APIs data streams (RSS, XML, etc) standards compliant Scriptaculous & Prototype JS

10. What we're interested in

11. Specific Technologies and Tools Google Docs Flickr Swivel, FreeBase Pidgin, iChat Slideshare Ning social sites YouTube publication Creative Commons Wordpress blogs Wordpress as CMS del-icio.us Google Earth - GIS Google Maps API RSS - making and using Bloglines aggregator

12. Google Docs – collaborative writing, spreadsheets, presentations Flickr – photo sharing and finding Swivel, FreeBase – sharing datasets and charts Pidgin, iChat – instant messaging Slideshare – presentation sharing Ning – custom social sites YouTube – video publication / sharing Creative Commons – legalese for content sharing Wordpress blogs – electronic publication and discussion Wordpress - lightweight CMS del-icio.us – social bookmarking and tagging Google Earth – lightweight GIS Google Maps API - mashups RSS creation and consumption – human readable / relevant data streams Bloglines – RSS aggregator

13. Some we're not using / doing micro-blogging (Twitter) developing flashy UI games (WoW, KoL, ARGs, PMOG, etc.) news filters (Digg, Slashdot, etc.) review / recommendation systems (GoodReads, Pandora, etc.) ITunesU

14. Food for Thought Obstacles, Opportunities, and Ideas

15. Obstacles adoption – how, and why support - how and by who culture - trust, privacy, hierarchy 1% rule - consumer vs participant tech environment - very varied reliability questions (and principles) lack of self-knowledge computer focused – vs cell phone et al limited resources

16. Opportunities / Applications intra-campus communication user-based support cross-group social connections student connections content creation / contribution know thyself re-cast existing services customized education experience bend space and time

17. Some Ideas and Observations We're not promoting web 2.0 to faculty, but trying to prepare them to survive when all students use it The individuals that make up the college community use web 2.0 for themselves even if they don't in their official capacity In many ways web 2.0 is more about individuals than groups or organizations The cultural attitudes and expectations (connectivity, accessibility, adaptability, etc.) associated with web 2.0 are more important than any particular technologies