Thing 2 - Learning 2.0

First, I watched Stephen Abram's video on 23 Things. I particularly liked his comment that librarians can make a difference in the progress of libraries by learning and using the technologies by immersing themselves in the technologies. Just like learning a new language, one can truly learn a new technology by immersing himself/herself in it.

I also watched Professor Wesch video "Web 2.0 . . . The Machine is Us/Using Us." In my Instructional Materials class this semester, we discussed why the video was given this title. My response was: "I believe Professor Wesch used the term because it is an accurate statement of how we use the Web. Through the Web we can reference many sites. However, it goes much farther than that. We can actually join information from different sites and use it in new sites. Web 2.0 has made collaboration of information easily utilized. Through blogs and wikis we can add or change information we find on the internet. With HTML and XML we are teaching or telling the computer what to do, where to go, etc. Therefore, by using others' information and linking from their sites, we are using the computer to build the information that we need. Also, we can create sites, such as Facebook, that give information about us. Thus, making the term "The Machine is Us/Using Us" accurate because the computer does become a part of us. Many have found that we cannot do without the Web. The more we use it, the more we become dependent on it."