elearnspace

I prefer to stay away from pop-culture resources as a source of guidance for where we are heading in terms of technology, and more broadly, society. I listened to a podcast (TWiT, episode #197) and was inundated with buzzwords (apparently it’s still cool to say “Google Juice”) and random nonsense. I was surprised by the seriousness of the topic (future of university) and the shallowness of the approach (at one point Don Tapscott offered the nonsensical statement we often hear at conferences: universities haven’t changed in 100 years!). With this mindset, I approached Tim O’Reilly and John Battelle’s article Web Squared: Web 2.0 Five Years On rather skeptically. I was pleasantly surprised. It’s an important article that captures a small glimpse of the future. Yes, there is a bit of silliness in the article (the web as a baby, slowly growing up with each innovation) and the conclusion is completely unsatisfactory (the web is now the world and the world needs our help – an interesting hypothesis, but one that requires an entire article, not a throw away piece at the end of this article).
Nevertheless, it’s a strong article. It captures trends, extrapolates to implications, and offers insight into where we are heading. Lots of great examples…