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The Future of Web 2.0
An interview with WSU's Gary Brown
2/27/2008
Then too, there are repositories with hundreds of applications, some more stable than others, which can work in this type of environment. The app that we're investing in here at WSU -- at least in terms of our time and energy, plus some licensing costs -- is Microsoft SharePoint. It's an example of the type of worldware that students are likely to encounter in the "real world." Will they encounter Blackboard, or specific drill-and-practice software? Probably not, but they will encounter a spreadsheet -- that's worldware, too, whether it's shareware or available from a vendor, as Excel is.
Some instructors are offering students a wide range of options in terms of which software tools they can choose to do their work. They may ask students to explain how they made their technology choices, or how their chosen technologies solved their problems and helped expand their notions of what technology could do. So, worldware is in itself a learning opportunity as we learn to use common applications and explore and repurpose other existing applications.
You say there are hundreds of worldware applications. How can you sustain stable programs with all of that? Is worldware just going to work itself out, somewhat like common office applications and e-mail have? It's going to be chaos. The only thing that is going to be consistent is change in and explosion of all these different technologies. But you ask if they will work themselves out, and the answer is yes. Still, each generation comes along with new expectations. Who could have guessed that text messaging would become so important? We've got to anticipate that these technologies will continue to evolve and change and explode. We're going to have to get used to the idea that we just have to accommodate that. And that's why I believe the killer application is going to be a "harvesting" gradebook.
How could the added dimension of working with employers scale across many different types of programs or disciplines? Career services organizations do a lot of this, and our business faculty also tend to have related projects through their professional and personal connections such as alumni. I believe we'll see alumni getting more involved, and career services units getting bigger. I also hope and expect to see increasing growth in community service learning-one of the hottest things happening in education right now. So, building outside relationships doesn't have to mean just working with employers, per se. For example, you could include real projects in the community, which is something the community and employers increasingly appreciate.
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