ED 566E - March 22, 2008, No. 9

Once again an interesting class. While we were looking at Google Earth someone asked how we would use this in the library and neither of us could come up with a good answer, but on further reflection I think that many of the new Web 2.0 tools aren't things that we necessarily need to use in the library at this point, but the idea is that we could use them. They are just extras at the moment and kids like always like the newest hippest thing. No one needs Google Earth, but a student doing a presentation on the Eifell Tower could put it into Google Earth to give the people watching the presentation another way to look at the Eifell Tower. Its an enhancement and I think that is how we need to view these new tools for now. 15 years ago people thought Power Point was completely unnecessary and now students wouldn't do a presentation without it. Some of these web 2.0 tools may be become integral like power point, while other will not last and for that reason we should have an awareness of them. So we can be part of that process. This thought has really changed my perspective on what we are learning in this course.