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6/1/2008
Speaking at April's Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, tech book publisher Tim O'Reilly (widely credited for coining the term "Web 2.0," which came into popular usage after he organized the first Expo in 2004) told conference attendees: "The real heart of Web 2.0 is collective intelligence, which I have defined as harnessing the network effect to build applications that get better the more people use them. Applications that are built on open, decentralized networks actually lead to new concentrations of power."
"The key is that it's all on the web," agrees Brown. "It seems implicit in the name, but it's worth clarifying that [Web 2.0 technology] is not something that you take home and install on your desktop. And though Web 2.0 technologies were not specifically designed for education, these are the kinds of technologies that students increasingly are going to find ‘out there,' and they are shaping the skills and expectations students bring with them to the universities."
O'Reilly points out that this is all part of the evolution of the web itself, into a "global platform for everything. It's this amazing tool for harnessing collective intelligence," says the visionary. "It's not just about participation or building a platform but, literally, about making the world smarter…. This is an amazing revolution in human augmentation. We're at a turning point akin to [the development of] literacy or the formation of cities."
Now's the time to use online tutorials to streamline professional development and help desk management.