Chapter 3: Tools

I really appreciate the section in Chapter 3 about Web 2.0 tools. In spite of the fact that I have spent the past few months intensively familiarizing myself with modern technology jargon, Chapter 3 (specifically pages 55-70) serves as a very helpful resource in clarifying and classifying some of the most recurrent Web 2.0 terminology. I consider myself fairly comfortable in recognizing the subtle differences, for example, between a wiki and a ning, or a blog and a social-networking site like FaceBook. However, I doubt that I would be able to identify and describe these differences with as much coherence to someone who has less experience with mainstream internet applications.

As an analogy, during a lecture about gas laws in my chemistry class, I asked the students to explain to me the concept of temperature. Their initial look of confidence soon faded as they realized that such an everyday concept did not have such an easy explanation. Certainly they were all familiar with the word “temperature”, and they all had experience with it -- they knew that they could use a thermometer to take the temperature of something, and that they had felt the relative temperature between something hot and something cold. But when I asked them to explain to me what a thermometer really measures, they balked. When thinking about the real science behind temperature, all of the sudden it became not so obvious what caused a thermometer to read differently when placed in a glass of warm water versus a glass of cold water.

That is the beauty of Chapter 3 in Web 2.0: new tools, new schools; these terms that sound so familiar, but become somewhat nebulous when you are asked to explain them, or compare them to each other, are defined and described with excellent clarity. Additionally, the book provides loads of example websites for each different Web 2.0 category. As someone who hopes to motivate his colleagues to get on board for the digital education revolution, Chapter 3 of this book will come in handy as a reference tool for both myself and my fellow tech-savvy teachers.

In case you’re still on the edge of your seat about the temperature story, temperature is the measure of kinetic energy (motion) of the molecules of a substance.