Tapscott is a Toronto-based writer who tackles concepts such as digital literacy and the changing nature of technology and society.
First of all, you may have asked the question “What is Web 2.0?” There are many terms floating around the “blogosphere” – to use another recent neologism. Blogs for one are a new kind of publishing, providing a voice for millions, an echo of the “desktop publishing” revolution of the 1980s that democratized the tools of creative production and allowed more people to participate in creating media. Web 2.0 encompasses blogs and social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn. But it’s also about apps like “Google Maps” and the ability of website designers and visitors to employ these technologies in novel and practical ways. Web 2.o is about a democratization of the media and the evolution toward constantly-evolving sites, non-static, truly dynamic, user-created worlds where the individual is king and interactivity rules. There are other related concepts. The “cloud” is one of the more interesting phenomenon. (More on that later!)
Writers like Tapscott argue that teenagers and twentysomethings, grown up with digital technology and media, possess a different kind of intelligence. Schools and businesses need to adapt to keep up. We live in a new world – a “brave new world wide web.” Content belongs to the “creative commons, ” collaboration is central and businesses can learn from innovators like Wikipedia and MySpace. Tapscott’s latest book is a look at the “Net Generation” and what it means to live in the 21st century – the world of “Web 2.0″ – a tech-crazy, digitally-dense era that demands the development of new kinds of skills and new ways of thinking.
Read my review of “Grown Up Digital”
Related: Marc Prensky is a writer/thinker with an interesting article called “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants” (look up marcprensky.com and click the writing link). Michael Wesch is an academic who speaks about “media ecology.” Look up his videos on YouTube.
