Write Technology

Don’t be scared of Web 2.0. It’s like that big shaggy sheepdog that you love. It’s big, but it’s cuddly and friendly. More importantly, it wants to love you and be loved in return.
Poor analogy, eh?

So many times this week I had to stop and explain Web 2.0, so I thought I’d pop those thougts onto the blog as well.

Over the last decade or so, the Web has been this wonderful, evolving creature. Most of us go to the Web to get something, be it travel information, a book from Amazon, weather reports, news … The Web gave and we took away. Just like a living creature, however, the Web has evolved. Now there is the opportunity to give something back. The world just got smaller. In Web 2.0, there is a give and take on all sides.

Blogs and wikis are the current big tools of the Web 2.0 revolution. Why? Well, with a blog, there is commentary on an editorial. Except a blog is usually moderated, and it becomes sort of a conversation in regards to the most recent post, or editorial. Wikis are even more collaborative. Wikis are dynamic, with all users participating, contributing their knowledge. Conversations can happen in the comments, but the actual knowledge grows and changes with each edit to the page. Are wikis always accurate? No, but they are self-correcting. Eventually, a wiki will become accurate.

Does that help at all? The point of these tools, and others like them, is to leverage existing knowledge. We’ve all got knowledge locked away inside our heads. This allows us to get that knowledge out there, share it with our friends and colleagues. Imagine the power of all that existing knowledge applied to learning!

The ASTD TechKnowledge Conference recently inspired me to make some changes within Write Technology. These are changes I’ve been thinking about for a while, but the time has come to start the ball rolling.
I want to move forward from creating standard eLearning for my clients. I want to start pushing them forward into collaborative learning, using blogs, wikis, RSS, and other tools to harness the existing knowledge surrounding them. I’ve got some great ideas as to how to implement this in a corporate environment.
Am I advocating switching from traditional elearning entirely? No. Just like I believe that not all training works best electronically, all learning does not always lend itself entirely to group collaboration. At least, not yet.
So, watch the Write-Tech main site in the next few weeks for some changes on the front and training pages. The world is changing. Several speakers at the conference pointed out – the world is changing. Adapt or die and learn.