Web 2.0 - The Second Generation Of World Wide Web

In general, Web 2.0 is basically the second generation of World Wide Web. It facilitates collaboration, participation, information sharing and giving feedback, unlike Web 1.0, which is simply an information platform where users only review through contents passively. In terms of technology, Web 2.0 refers to the conversion from static to dynamic HTML web pages.

Common examples of Web 2.0 would be Google, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. This report is going to be about Edmodo and BoomWriter, which are the two selected Web 2.0 applications among hundreds of tools. Each of them will be briefly described with the URL and their background information. Furthermore, we will also analyse their academic skills enhancement, compare and contrast.

Eventually, base on certain criteria, we will give out our evaluation and recommendation about the two tools. BoomWriter Brief description URL: https://www.boomwriter.com/ BoomWriter is a website which creates a creative environment for students to read and write stories by choosing their favourite characters, plot twists and conclusion. Its headquarter is located in the Greater Boston Area, East Coast, New Zealand.

There are three founders, including Chris Twyman, Ian Garland and Ken Haynes who have founded BoomWriter in 2010. How skills for academic studies are enhanced? BoomWriter develops critical thinking skills by allowing students to read and build up their creative parts of the story. For instance, they are given a story start and are expected to write the next part of the story, which will then be voted by the groups. In order to write this, they must be capable to analyse, interpret the story start and then evaluate and decide how they are going to write the upcoming parts. As a result, critical thinking skills will be gradually improved.

Moreover, information literacy skills are strengthened simultaneously. Students can effectively choose their own choice of characters, create a stunning ending and locate the plot twists efficiently to attract audiences. After voting, students can evaluate their own writing process and the story itself to make improvements. They may be required to pick suitable vocabulary from the list given by teachers. This is how students grow their information literacy skills- be able to use information proficiently.

Besides that, BoomWriter enhances team collaboration skills. Students can share, review their peers’ work and discuss collaboratively to come up with the best story entry. They work together to find out mistakes, upgrade them and finally, publish the book. Not only that, students can build up their communication skills and widen their perspectives and horizons.

To illustrate this point, there are more than 30,000 teachers who have joined BoomWriter with the number of students around the world up to hundred thousands of people. Therefore, students have an opportunity to interact and learn new writing styles from different places in the world. Edmodo Brief description URL: https://www.edmodo.com/ Edmodo is a global education network offering a collaborative and engaging platform to K1 - 12 students, teachers and parents.

Its headquarter is situated in the San Francisco Bay Area, Silicon Valley, West Coast. Edmodo was founded by Charles Rosendahl, Jeff O’Hara and Nicolas Borg in 2008. Its CEO is Vibhu Mittal, who is trying to take a step forward in Edmodo’s security updating. How skills for academic studies are enhanced? According to Edmodo, it is a safe place for discussion that creates a chance for even the most shy student to communicate and contribute their ideas with friends and teachers.

Additionally, students can interact with millions of learners from more than 190 countries and connect with educators. Hence, communication skills are enhanced. Moreover, using Edmodo improves information literacy skills. For example, students can know their own assessments’ grades and the ongoing progress. Thus, they are able to evaluate their performances to make decisions on studying strategies.

Furthermore, students are enabled to create a planner to meet deadlines, which requires them to use and locate information effectively in various formats. In addition, quizzes, assignments and contents shared by teachers on Edmodo can promote critical thinking skills. To give you an idea, my Global teacher had shared many websites and asked us to form an objective judgement on the topics by thinking rationally and analysing facts.

Another skill Edmodo helps to foster is team collaboration. Students can join any groups with a class code and they can collaborate with groups from other schools in another country. They form a debate, post comments and work together to achieve a final solution. 3. Compare and contrast (Jing) VS. Evaluation (Talay) As a group, we have decided that Edmodo is a more effective tool than BoomWriter regardless of their different usabilities.

Edmodo seems to be more powerful as it builds a massive global network of communities whereas BoomWriter is still operating on a small scale. Edmodo allows more collaboration between students and teachers than BoomWriter, which focuses mostly on interactions between students and students. Not only that, Edmodo’s students are exposed to the variety of resources/lessons whereas BoomWriter’s students only access to stories.

Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that in terms of usability, Edmodo has a winning position. Regarding to the interoperability, both tools have done a great job. Their user-interfaces are friendly, easy to understand and are likely to grab audiences’ attention. Animated characters and icons are used to represent applications that are suitable for the use of children. Edmodo and BoomWriter have ‘About us’ and ‘Contact us’ sections that allow users to interact with the websites and have questions for the applications. Besides that, both can synchronize their software by working simultaneously on both computers and mobile phones, increasing convenience. According to a review from Common Sense

Education, although BoomWriter provides a special way to activate students’ creativity, its voting system is likely to demotivate those who have less writing experience (VanderBorght 2014). BoomWriter also has three writing options including StoryWriter, ProjectWriter and WordWriter which provide teachers with more varieties to choose contexts that fit their existing lessons. The overall rating is 3 over 5 for BoomWriter. On the other hand, regarding to Marianne’s review, Edmodo allows teachers to get quick feedback from polls and assessments by collecting, grading and monitoring digitally.

However, Edmodo’s user-interface is usually interrupted by pop-up advertisements and also viewed as a lack of excitement. The overall rating is 4 over 5, which is one rate higher than BoomWriter. Conclusion (Muoi) In summary, we have briefly described the two web 2.0 applications, which are BoomWriter and Edmodo. We also analysed how they enhance four skills in relation to our academic studies as well as compare and contrast the two.

Eventually, base on usability, interoperability and the reviews from reliable sources, we have evaluated the two tools leading to a final conclusion- Edmodo is a more effective tool. We recommend students and teachers to use Edmodo as it is the world’s largest learning community that offers limitless resources. If students want to be more creative and step out of the normal boundary, we would recommend them to write stories on BoomWriter, as they can let their imaginations run wild!

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