Web 2.0 Grant Proposal - the generic version

Last week my brother Gus and I took a quick trip to Monterrey Mexico so I could race in the ITU Aquathlon World Championships, or Campeon del Mundo. The entire trip verged on the surreal, being in a world championship race, trying to communicate on 100 words of Spanish, and all of the sitting still while travelling at 400 MPH. Some things were way over the bizarre redline, the Mexican sushi, sharing a taxi with the coach of the Mexican National Triathlon Team and flying through a lightning storm in a commuter airplane.

But, we had an excess of hangin' out time ... and Gus helped me build a "short" generic proposal for a Web 2.0 grant by culling through all the writing I've already done and a little more scribbling and hand waving. That Gus is so smart. Yeah, I know he let me torture him with 4 days of travel and mystery, but he really is smart.

Anyway ... here's the first draft of the proposal.


Web 2.0 Grant Proposal

Tony Sako
Ass. Prof. Computer Science
Columbia Basin College
July 2, 2008

Even though the name Web 2.0 may make you think that it’s a new version of the web, it isn’t really a new technology. It a term used to define web sites that allow users to add content without having to know how to code in HTML. These sites have been growing in number, and they have allowed for a huge increase in amount of information added to the web.

Web 2.0 sites are often broken into categories depending on the type of function or service they offer. For example, there are blog sites that allow an individual to keep a personal log, and other users to add comments to the log entries. There are also wikis, which build silos of information by allowing multiple users to add, edit and annotate information. Wikipedia and Wikiversity are famous examples of wikis. There are also
media sharing sites (images, videocasts, podcasts, screencasts etc.) such as Flickr and YouTube; social networks such as MySpace and FaceBook, social bookmarking sites such as Del.icio.us or Digg; cloud computing sites such as Office Live or Google Docs; virtual worlds such as Second Life, and mashups that combine the functionality of more than one site.

The students graduating from high-school have been called the Millennial Generation, but a better name may be “The Young & The Wireless” as they have never known a life without the web, and they are very much accustomed to using Web 2.0 sites. They instant message, they belong to social networks, they blog and add videos to YouTube. They not only do these things, they take them for granted. They’ve never known a life without the web, cell phones or Starbucks. Several studies have shown they take it’s availability for granted, see it as a vehicle for self-expression, and expect others to use their content.

Web 2.0 and the technical aptitude, attitudes and habits of the Millennials present educators with some outstanding opportunities and a few challenges. For example, one of the criticisms of the industrial age class model is that there is very limited discussion. Due to time constraints a typical class will consist of an instructor lecture(s), followed by limited discussion and then some assessment activities. A Web 2.0 enhanced class (called Education 2.0 or the digital classroom) makes it easy to have online discussions through blogs. This allows classes to expand discussion time and move towards a more cyber-Socratic, discussion based classroom; and away from the industrial age classroom model

One of the challenges of Web 2.0 in education is to ensure that industrial age classes aren’t simply moved to the web. For example, Stanford has made podcasts of some of it’s lectures. While the lectures are interesting the podcasts simply show a talking head along with whatever slides were included in the lecture. There is even less discussion than in a normal classroom, so in some sense it’s even worse than the typical industrial age classroom.

Stanford could make this into a great Web 2.0 experience for it’s students by allowing them to edit the video and add supplemental graphics and text. While the end result should be a better video, the thing to remember is that the video itself isn’t the important thing. The important thing is that the students will have participated in the creation of the video. And, this participation will surely enhance their understanding of the subject. Contrast how much a student would have to understand the content of a lecture to make it better as opposed to how much a student would comprehend by simply watching a lecture.

A well designed Web 2.0 class would be very much like a well designed traditional class, where the more students participate the more they gain. The difference is in the additional opportunities for participation. In addition to participating in classroom discussions and assignments students can keep their own blogs, build their own wikis or create their own podcasts and videos.

Web 2.0 presents CBC two huge opportunities. The first is to add Web 2.0 to traditional classes to enhance student learning and move towards a more Socratic classroom. There are already a few instructors at CBC who have started using some of the features of Web 2.0 in the classroom. But without some guidance these early adopters are in danger of falling into the trap of creating their own blogs, or making podcasts or screencasts of their lectures; and failing to allow their students to participate in the creation of content.

The second opportunity for CBC is to build on it’s excellent start in online education. Blogs, wikis, media sharing and cloud computing will enhance student learning in any class, online or in class. In addition, Web 2.0 makes it easy to add content to the web, so there are many new educational resources such as Wikiversity or the Stanford podcasts available on the Internet. With some guidance, Web 2.0 could be an enhancement to any and all of CBC’s online classes.

Another way that Web 2.0 may affect online education at CBC is in respect to WebCT, our Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) (also known as a Course Management System (CMS)). While WebCT has proven to be a valuable tool, it has a few shortcomings that may be addressed by the movement towards an open source VLE such as moodle. In addition, an open source VLE may provide a better path to the future than a proprietary tool such WebCT. The new open source modules for moodle are available free as opposed to having to pay updates or maintenance for a proprietary program such as WebCT. And, new course material is developed in an open XML format, which makes it much easier for instructors to share course information. I believe it would be worth while for someone at CBC to investigate the VLE situation.

Since Web 2.0 is Internet based, it also presents tremendous opportunity for sharing and teaming with local K-12 districts, colleges and universities worldwide, and local for profit and non-profit organizations. Web 2.0 allows anyone in any of these groups to add content, which means experts from around the local community to experts from the world can add to course content. And since the course material is hosted on the Internet it can be easily be shared. The same course material can be used by students in a K-12 class, a college class; or even for training purposes by employees in industry. Web 2.0 has the potential to erase the lines between different educational institutions and allow delivery of world class material to anyone that wants to participate. This would be tremendous step towards meeting the truly seamless educational vision developed by Rich Cummins and Lee Thornton for the Tri-Cities community.

Web 2.0 also presents opportunities for CBC outside of the classroom. Social networks can be used for recruiting and delivering information to prospective students. Social networks can also be used to stay in contact with alumni, and allow them to stay in contact with each other. This would be a great communication tool for the Foundation in it’s fund raising efforts.

As mentioned above, there are also some challenges, decisions and issues that should be addressed when implementing Web 2.0 in education. For example, how do we know if adding Web 2.0 is actually helping our students meet their educational and life goals? There should be some assessment using objective metrics to answer these questions.

There are also at least two legal issues that must be addressed. The first is ensuring that any online communities we host or participate follow the same rules as our real world society. That means protecting individuals from harassment and bullying; or unwanted sexual advances, especially in the case of minors. This can be addressed with policies, but there must also be some way to ensure that the policies are enforced. The second is ensuring that all of our content is accessible. Podcasts and videos should have text based equivalents, and blogs or other text based content should have audio equivalents. Some of this can be addressed with more automation, for example you can make a link from a blog to a site that will read the text. We just need to ensure that this link is included in all our text pages.

There is also a set of intertwined issues, the question of Intellectual Property (IP) (who owns the content) and using a hosted service or hosting our own. If you add content to a hosted service such as Wikipedia or Facebook, then they own the content. This is satisfactory as long as they stay in business and offer free access; but what happens if they decide to charge for access or go out of business? In some cases this can be solved by hosting our own service, for example there is free wiki software or free social networking software we can run on our own computers. However, having our own service has the obvious tradeoff that it’s not as visible as the major services. How many people would know to use the CBC wiki or even know that it exists as opposed to Wikipedia?

I’d like to propose seeking grant based funds to help guide CBC in the testing, implementation and assessment of the various Web 2.0 tools, starting with our students and classes but eventually including the local K12 districts, other state colleges and universities and local businesses. These funds should also support the resolving real and potential issues, and developing policies and guidelines for Web 2.0 use by CBC students and faculty, and the community at large.