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Exciting changes are in coming to a school near you. New tools and attitudes on the Web are transforming the once static, one way medium into a dynamic center of multi-channeled collaboration.

This transformation is being described as Web 2.0 and is too big to cover in one post. In this post I'll attempt to provide a coherent introduction and a foreshadowing of future posts that will provide some greater detail and sample applications.

What is Web 2.0? A good place to find a definition is at one of the sites that exemplifies this new web, Wikipedia.

According to Wikipedia, Web 2.o is a second phase of development for the World Wide Web. Up until recently, the Web was largely static, one-way, and not very intelligent. The majority of sites found on the web provided information from few sources and had rather simplistic mechanisms for determining what was important or relevant.

Recent innovations and understandings have driven Web developers to design more dynamic sites that utilize user feedback and knowledge to refine content. One example of this type of site is Digg.com. This user led technology news site depends upon users submitting stories that might be of interest to the readers. If the story is deemed important or interesting by users, they can 'digg' the story. This simple convention results in fantastic stories working their way quickly to the 'front page.' Of note is the fact that the front page stories might be from a major news organization or a personal blog. What matters is the quality of the story, not the size of the publishing organization.

Check out Digg.com for an introduction to Web 2.0. Watch this site for more on Web 2.0 in upcoming blogs.