Abstract:

During the last years the usage and dependency on Internet has drastically increased, as well as applications based on it, and this fact has had an immediate impact in the field of education. Moreover, the transition from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 has involved an important change in the way in which applications are used; both students and teachers become editors and are able to develop their own contents.

Current students live in a permanent digital environment, using smartphones, digital cameras and Internet. These students use blogs, play video games in 3D environments, listen to their podcasts, keep in touch with his friends continuously, use modern instant communication media and take information up quickly from images, videos and text of multiple sources. All this current technology revolution is a very interesting tool that can help teachers to create enriched and collaborative working environments taking into account the different learning necessities.

Learning in the current context is much more than the comprehension of knowledge transmitted by books and teachers which requires the student to assume personal responsibility for building and communicating knowledge with others.

There are a large number of applications and innovative services based on the Web 2.0 concept which can be used in the educational field. In this paper, some of the most interesting examples are going to be presented: blogs, wikis, podcasting, social networks, multimedia sharing, digital whiteboards and learning platforms based on virtual sites. For each of them, their possible uses in education will be discussed.

Finally, a number of requirements are listed in order to use Web 2.0 applications. The use of these applications in an educative system involves to incorporate technological resources to schools as well as to train teachers in their usage. However, this is not enough and an important change in the way of teaching is necessary. To create, share, participate and collaborate are very positive aspect which may allow the education community to adapt to the new knowledge society.

Keywords:

Web 2.0 applications, learning, teaching, Internet.