Running head: WEB 2.

0 SOCIAL TECHNOLOGIES

Web 2.0 Social Technologies: Why Educators and Learners Should Know about Web 2.0

University of Northern Colorado

PSY540 Term Paper

Kangdon Lee

WEB 2.0 SOCIAL TECHNOLOGIES Introduction

Since the advent of the Internet in early 1990s, human beings have built relationships with others without actual gathering within a close geographical location (Griffith & Liyanage, 2008). At that time, with the assistance of the Internet, people searched information on the web and kept it noted or printed no matter what information they want to have. They also joined online communities to share knowledge and experiences with other people through bothersome membership procedures and permissions. According to Silva, Rahman, and El Saddik (2008), these patterns of getting and sharing information was considered as Web 1.0, which can be characterized as static, centralized, content-based, one-way communicating, readable, inflexible, and individual. After the new millennium began, web environments started moving toward more dynamic and distributed communities than Web 1.0 and focused more on communicating and sharing rather than providing and retrieving information unilaterally. According to articles on Web 2.0 (OReilly, 2005; Bartolome, 2008), the term Web 2.0 first appeared during a meeting arranged by Tim OReilly and MediaLive International in 2004, and then at the first Web 2.0 conference held in late 2004, OReilly (2005) defined Web 2.0 as a web platform where applications are built on the web rather than installed on the desktop. In addition, Web 2.0 is construed as a web system that breaks with the centralized web concept and moves the power of the web to each individuals desktop (Anderson, 2007). In other words, Web 2.0 is interpreted as user-oriented, service-based, open, bilateral, writable, social, and dynamic (Silva et al, 2008), because it allows web users to create their own content, interact, and collaborate with one another in an open and social network environment as content creators as opposed to consumers of information.

WEB 2.0 SOCIAL TECHNOLOGIES Characteristics of Web 2.0 in education Since Web 2.0 applications including social media and technologies are interactive, collaborative, and contextual tools that are easily accessible, highly useful, mostly free, and

intended to support collaborating and sharing content with peers and colleagues, a great number of Web 2.0 users for their educational purposes have been advancing themselves from using content for sharing to incorporating tools for systematic thinking and groups for collaborating to achieve cooperative goals (Dede, 2011). There are five positive features of employing Web 2.0 tools in education. To begin with, Web 2.0 applications offer educators and learners with a great amount of affordances that are hardly found in other technological hardware and software regarding creation of knowledge individually and cooperatively. In addition, social technologies support online collaborative opportunities that can blur the physical and temporal boundaries for limitless and seamless educational experiences (U.S. Department of Education, 2010). As affirmed in the study of Grant and Mims (2009), Web 2.0 tools are easy to use and require little technical training for employing them into the actual education practices, thus making educators and learners more easily engaged in those web applications. Third, according to the National Education Technology Plan 2010 (U.S. Department of Education, 2010), Web 2.0 applications have great strengths in collecting information and ideas by RSS (Really Simple Syndication) through the Internet. The fourth merit of Web 2.0 tools for education can be found in participatory and collaborative natures of social technologies such as social networking and bookmarking, creating and sharing documents, photos and videos through collaboration and mash-ups. Last but not least, the National Education Technology Plan 2010 (U.S. Department of Education, 2010) reports that one of the attractive characteristics of Web 2.0

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technologies that draw peoples attention to employing Web 2.0 services for their teaching and learning experiences is the continuity. The resources, once they have been available on the web with sustainable network connections, continue to be ready for being used by educators and learners after they have been outside schools.

Learning theories of Web 2.0 technologies

Information processing theory. According to Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968), human beings have the three types of memories in their retaining system of the brain. These comprise sensory, short-term (working), and long-term memory and that sensory and working memories last only seconds. In other words, this memory system of human beings demonstrates why humans have difficulty recalling things long enough to perform simple tasks or comprehend concepts. Lohr (2008) argued that individuals sensory memory only focus on the most relevant and interesting information, and thus ignoring other information and filtering out a great deal of unnecessary information. This selective function is a core part of sensory memory. Regarding working memory, Miller (1956) asserted that working memory holds certain units of information between 5 and 9 units, which can be 7 plus and minus 2 units. This short-term memory is significant when professionals distinguish between experts and novices in learning and retrieving information when needed. Bransford, Brown, and Cocking (2000) contended that the most important difference between experts and novices is whether there exist meaningful patterns of information regarding learning, retrieving, and utilizing information or not. More to the point, experienced learners

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have more abilities to reason and solve given problems and adopt new concepts and knowledge than what premature learners do. Experts have their own authentic and meaningful methods of adopting and utilizing information they learn, and thus remembering and retrieving the right amount of necessary information at the right time (Bransford et al., 2000). When viewing information processing theory from the perspective of storing and retrieving the appropriate information at the most valuable time, we can think of Web 2.0 social technologies in that information can be stored, retrieved, and modified as needed with the use of Web 2.0 applications such as media sharing and note-taking. This is because students as novice learners can facilitate their weaknesses on storing information at and retrieving it from their working memory by using these note-taking and content storing Web 2.0 services as supplementary tools.

Self-regulated learning theory. Self-regulated learning theory originates from the assumption that individuals take charge of their own learning activities and have opportunities to be responsible for their behaviors and learning outcomes (Vygotsky, 1962). In his developmental theory, the zone of proximal development known as ZPD was created to explain how individuals are able to make the best use of their mental tools as facilitators to maximize their developmental abilities. Vygotsky (1962) also argued that learners with the help and assistance from teachers or other tools from the beginning are able to progressively develop their abilities to perform given tasks without any supports. In accordance with Zimmerman (2000), self-regulated learning theory put the most value on individual learners self-determination and control and these individual learners take control of their own learning activities by directing, monitoring, and regulating actions and outcomes.

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Moreover, Bransford et al. (2000) affirmed that self-regulated learning requires individuals to have their metacognitive abilities, which mean that learners know their levels of skills and knowledge and apply them at the right place and at the right time. That is, individuals with metacognition have abilities and knowledge about when, what, where, and how to use specific skills and strategies for their learning purposes or solving particular problems. In this respect, Web 2.0 social technologies can also be utilized to facilitate and leverage individuals self-regulated learning activities in many of educational and corporate settings. The features of Web 2.0 such as self-representation, self-creation, and self-reflection can support the uses of Web 2.0 in self-regulated learning environments. Individual learners with their strong metacognition, for example, are able to employ self-creating and self-representation Web 2.0 social technologies for creating, monitoring, and reflecting learning artifacts by internal and sociocultural interactions with other individuals. These self-representation and self-reflection Web 2.0 tools include blogs and wikis for reflection, media creation and presentation tools for self-representation, and idea building tools for self-regulation of ideas.

Situated learning theory. Vygotsky (1978; 1986) insisted that sociocultural perspectives of human learning are pivotal to enhance individuals cognition of skills and knowledge in the sense that human beings have their minds evolved towards more appropriately and efficiently obtaining skills and knowledge within the context of social interactions and enculturation. Put differently, the degree of individuals learning can vary based on their social engagements and cultural backgrounds. Individuals who actively interact with other people within the familiar cultural surroundings have more meaningful and authentic patterns of learning than the ones who are in the unfamiliar context with few social interactions.

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Lave and Wenger (1990) asserted that learning is dependent on situations where learners are encouraged to learn actively within the culture-based context. That is, learning can be embedded within activity, context, and culture and also occurs unintentionally rather than consciously. Authors also emphasized that skills and knowledge need to be obtained in meaningful contexts where learners can actively and profoundly be engaged in. In addition to that, social communications and collaborations with other individuals are vital elements in the situated learning contexts. According to Greeno (1998), situated learning theory chiefly emphasizes the degree of interactivity and enculturation of individuals as participants and collaborators, communicating with other entities, materials, or systems. Moreover, Vygotsky (1978; 1986) argued that the individuals mental tools that are already set up based on their cultural schemas play a significant role in the acquisition of necessary skills and knowledge in the context of situated learning theory. Hence, knowledge they earn and thinking they do inside of their minds with proper mental tools cannot be separable, but be reciprocally connected. For these reasons, Web 2.0 social technologies hold the same truths on situativity in situated learning theory because of the characteristics of Web 2.0 tools representing participation, interactivity, and contextualization. Students, for instance, may meet various academic situations where they might need to create something totally new within unfamiliar schemas or advance their thoughts about certain topics based on their previous experiences. In these situations where students feel strange or new, they may need other supplementary tools, applications, or interactions with other peers or objects to grasp the ideas from new schemas and make unfamiliar issues solved and friendly. In other words, from students perspectives, they can employ Web 2.0 social tools to solve their new problems and get accustomed to their new

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situations. These Web 2.0 applications comprise (1) social networking and bookmarking tools for investigating new topics by gathering, interacting, and collaborating, (2) collaborative documenting applications for co-creating and discussing, and (3) mash-up services for creating, monitoring, and modifying artifacts as diverse situations needed.

Cognitive flexibility theory. In accordance with Spiro and Jehng (1990), cognitive flexibility theory is a learning theory that reflects individuals diversities and personalities on their learning environments and artifacts. That is, cognitive flexibility theory is a conceptual learning principle that originates from cognitive learning theory for creating learner-centered educational environments. Furthermore, Bransford et al. (2000) demonstrated the core concepts of cognitive flexibility theory as follows. These include (1) learning activities with multiple media representations, (2) case-by-case learning and learner-based instruction, (3) real world contexts and knowledge building, and (4) interwoven structures of knowledge instead of compartmentalization. The features of cognitive flexibility theory such as diverse representations, case-based approaches, and interconnectedness of information and knowledge exactly match the key concepts of Web 2.0 social technologies in the sense that Web 2.0 social tools have strong advantages of multiple representations, instance-oriented services, and sustainable connectivity between human and human or between human and environments. More specifically, learners can create and present as various learning outcomes as they can afford to have dependent on their cognitive abilities, which can also be interpreted into their metacognition, with varied Web 2.0 applications like concept mapping applications, self-representation tools, and multiple sharing services.

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In addition, students can start using Web 2.0 tools from the very basic level of employing Web 2.0 social applications. For example, students at first can utilize simple image editing tools, collaborative documentation services, and basic presentation applications on a case basis, which can be reflective of mini-cases in the examples of cognitive flexibility theory. Afterwards, students can mash-up as many Web 2.0 tools as they can deal with based on their cognitive capacities simultaneously, when they feel confident of using, integrating, and mixing diverse Web 2.0 social tools for one huge instructional project. And finally, Web 2.0 social technologies can have the same insight of interconnectedness of cognitive flexibility theory because the underlying core concept of Web 2.0 social technologies can be construed with the keywords such as networked, intertwined, connected, linked, and so forth.

Motivational theory. According to Bransford et al. (2000), motivation is a critical concept of most theories of learning that can be the significant key to make individuals do something because of the inherent interesting gains (intrinsic) or the external rewards (extrinsic). For example, a person needs to be motivated enough to pay attention to certain things willingly while learning. In another case, an individual can be motivated enough to get a reward itself from outside. Regarding the two types of motivation, Weiner (1990) argued that learning theories of behaviorism is inclined to emphasize on extrinsic motivation such as rewards, while cognitive learning theories tend to deal with intrinsic motivation like goals. When viewing Web 2.0 social applications from motivational perspectives, we can also apply the learning theories of motivation to the uses of Web 2.0 social technologies in the context of educating and training individuals. For instance, teachers can employ Web 2.0 tools not only to leverage their teaching efficiency but also to motivate students by showing them how

WEB 2.0 SOCIAL TECHNOLOGIES swiftly, conveniently, and efficiently learning can be performed and how creatively and

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innovatively learning outcomes can be produced. Moreover, educators can use these Web 2.0 tools to create interactive and communicative learning environments that may stimulate learners motivations by active and interesting learning activities and communications. From the students viewpoints, students can be more engaged and interested in their learning and class activities than before by doing active learning practices and voluntarily participating in various learning events. As a consequence, students can figure out more diverse and advanced manners for them to utilize Web 2.0 social technologies in their learning experiences. By doing so, in some days, learners can be greatly motivated individuals, pursuing more active learning practices and making other learners more motivated with their presentations to, interactions with, recommendations to, and collaborations with other peers.

Social learning theory. The essential foundation and conceptual notion of Web 2.0 applications in education is based on sociality, which is also the primary way human beings naturally learn. Thus, the fundamental insights of how social technologies representing Web 2.0 tools and social interactions affect teaching and learning experiences can be found starting from social learning theory (Bandura, 1977). According to social learning theory by Bandura (1977), human beings can learn from observation that can occur in relation to a model from the real world, verbal instructions with desired behaviors, and symbolic media such as TVs, literature, Internet, videos, and the like. The critical factor of Banduras (1977) social learning theory is reciprocal determinism, which states that a persons behavior influences others conducts as well as being affected by both the characteristics of other individuals and the environments. In great detail, an individuals behavior, circumstance, and individuality all have influences on one

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another (Grusec, 1992). Moreover, Bandura (1977b, 1986) also affirms that other individual factors and their qualities within a person interact with each other as reciprocal determinants that have bilateral and mutual influences.

Observational learning theory. Observational learning (Bandura, 1977, as cited in Grusec, 1992; Bandura, 1986), known as vicarious learning or modeling, is the core conceptual framework of Banduras (1977) social learning theory, and vicarious learning occurs within observing and reproducing unique behaviors conducted by others. Although, according to Bandura (1977), observational learning has greater significance during childhood because of the considerable help and support from their authorities such as parents, older siblings, and teachers, it can take place at any stage in a humans life span, but more widely extended with regard to the scope and scale of subjects and contexts applicable, of vicarious (observational) learning with emerging technologies such as Web 2.0 tools, social media, and other instantaneous and ubiquitous technologies (Grusec, 1992; Bandura, 1986). The procedural variables underlying observational learning theory, as noted in Culattas (2011) article, are: (a) Attention: modeled incidents to draw an observers attention and characteristics, (b) Retention: symbolic coding, rehearsal, and cognitive structuring, (c) Reproduction: self-recreating and physical capabilities based on observation, (d) Motivation: intrinsic and extrinsic reinforcement.

Constructivism. Bruner (1973) states that learning is a socially productive and reciprocally influential process in which learners construct their own new ideas and concepts based on their past and current skills and knowledge. In other words, leaners have the capabilities of collecting and selecting data and information, transforming them into meaningful

WEB 2.0 SOCIAL TECHNOLOGIES skills and knowledge, and then further constructing novel thoughts and decisions going far beyond the data and information given. This aspect of constructivism can be found in social

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technologies in that learners have great opportunities to be educational media creators through finding meaningful ways to utilize Web 2.0 tools for educational settings, editing, creating, and sharing instructional outcomes with other people. In this way, although learners start by using Web 2.0 applications as content users (accessing, reading, getting ideas, and commenting on them), this transformation from a consumer to a creator provides learners with great chances and possibilities for their successive learning. This can be in great possibilities for educators and learners with the assistance of self-regulatory, participatory, and collaborative natures of Web 2.0 technologies. In this regard, the importance of technology in education as constructive tools is supported by many studies. Jonassen and Reeves (1996) contend that the role of technology, primarily computers, in education has been considered as a mediator for constructing and delivering more affluent and appealing learning environments. In addition, technologies are of great importance to support learners as designers and self-regulators to construct their own knowledge bases by accessing, organizing, and interpreting information into their personal knowledge, and transferring their wisdom to other peers (Jonassen et al., 1996; Jonassen, 1994).

Active learning theory. McLoughlin and Lee (2008) contend that the purposes of diverse participatory, collaborative, and creative web activities and applications for learning (referred as social technologies and Web 2.0 tools) can be assimilated into the core concepts of active learning theory, because active learning theory emphasizes distributed and decentralized educational environments collaborative, connected, and interactive rather than traditional knowledge dissemination systems top-down and teachers-to-students. According to Tong

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(2001), active learning theory is the learning principle that students are at the core of learning environments where learners ask questions by participating and collaborating, control educational resources by analyzing and creating, and receive responses by considering and reconstructing. More to the point, learners adaptively throw questions to the world based on their past learning outcomes and proactively seek solutions for those queries by manipulating varied learning resources and interacting with themselves and other learners. Moreover, Farrell (2009) states that active learning can lead to deep learning experiences on learners sides by allowing them to query about educational phenomena, construct skills and knowledge, and create their meaningful outcomes within their educational surroundings. With these active learning practices in the context of Web 2.0 learning environments, in accordance with Farrells (2009) argument, active learning has the power to advance learners over the role of passive receivers.

Connectivism. With this background of rapidly changing technologies and evolving education environments, Siemens (2005) develops a learning theory, Connectivism that reflects learning needs, principles, and processes in educational environments of the twenty first century where diverse aspects of learning; such as connecting, participating, collaborating, creating, and communicating, are of utmost importance. He also emphasizes that these learning needs and principles of the twenty first century education should be based on social interactions and networks supported by social communications and technologies. According to Siemens (2005), learning in connective education systems is a process of creating connections, interacting with other entities, and expanding more connections with open, participatory, and collaborative natures of Web 2.0 environments. Moreover, connectivism supports critical and creative thinking skills enabling learners to know more and deeper, so that learners find information they need to

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act, process information with other learners collaboratively and cooperatively, and then produce their own learning outcomes within the context of social and connective learning circumstances.

Cases of using Web 2.0 social technologies in education

Blogging/Micro-blogging Conole and Alevizou (2010) describe that blogs, starting from the idea of an individual homepage, have two different names: a personal web-publishing tool and a reflective web log. Despite these two different titles for blogs, both names represent the three characteristics of blogs personal, chronological, and reflective. In terms of the use of blogs in educational settings, Grosseck (2009) contends that blogs can be used, from the educators perspective, to leverage classroom learning by additional discourses, comments, and feedback as well as encourage students to partake in live writing activities such as critical reflections and new entries. Moreover, as individuals, not only can students employ blogs to expand their knowledge about favorable topics by writing their own thoughts with responsibility, but they also can build up their peer networks for professional developments. Regarding the importance of blogs in educational contexts, Crook et al. (2008) argue that blogs can be a essential and significant motivational tool by using blogs with the manifest purposes of blogging and the proper unity within formal education systems. In this respect, blogs have been used for the diverse purposes of education, for instance as open communicative platforms for more engagements of students, as bridges for supporting continuous peer networks, and as bases for prompt reflections and feedback. In addition, blogs can be utilized as repositories where educators and learners collect all their works together such

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as portfolios (Armstrong & Franklin, 2008). With regard to using blogs in educational settings, Huffaker (2005) contends, Any discipline can use blogs to approach a style of meta-learning, where concepts or contexts are discussed and articulated in both a personalized and group exchange, and ideas are built on previous educational content (p. 95). Also, blogging on a regular basis can be a great advantage for students not only to improve the skills of searching and organizing ideas and information, and writing with a sense of responsibility, but also keep up to date on the knowledge of their interesting fields for future professional developments.

Wikis/Collaboration In a 2008 report, Armstrong and Franklin state that wikis are effective Web 2.0 tools for classroom educations on account of feature including collective and collaborative knowledge production, versioning capability, intertwined information networks, and instant publishing. According to Mindel and Verma (2006), the educational uses of wikis are diverse, ranging from organizing resources, taking notes, self-reflecting on readings, sharing findings, and to creating inquiring experiences. As noted in the study of Grosseck (2009), wikis can be a great Web 2.0 tool for students not only to organize resources such as documents and multimedia and collaborate on ideas with their peers, but also to especially facilitate project-based tasks with groups of students, having critical discourses and creating valuable learning outcomes. From educators perspective, Frydenberg (2008) insists that wikis can be more collaboratively used for class management, compared to a CMS (Content Management System) like Blackboard or Moodle, because wikis encourage students to be involved in the process of producing and sharing content in a class, allowing learners to interact and collaborate with peers and other tools. That is, students can create study sheets for their tests, manage group projects

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with their peers, and contribute the progress of the class within class wikis that their teachers created. Moreover, Armstrong and Franklin (2008) emphasize on the use of wikis as resource repositories, stating that wikis can be served as the reposition center of information and knowledge for educators, learners, and classes, generated by either teachers or students. Teachers, for example, can employ co-browsing collaboration tools to improve the engagement of their students into classroom activities by sharing their computer screens and working together with their students on searching for information they need over the web in more collaborative and cooperative manners. In conjunction with the example of teachers, students learning activities with their peers for group projects and research can be dramatically leveraged by the use of these co-browsing Web 2.0 tools especially in finding broader and deeper results of information and sharing it with each other instantaneously. Furthermore, a critical discourse of a given topic with educators and learners watching a video on the topic together, which can be conducted by a collaborative Web 2.0 tool like Watch2gether, can increase the effectiveness and promptness of a debate, promoting communicative and critical thinking skills of students at the same time.

Social networking for informal learning According to Boyd and Ellison (2008), social networking services (SNSs) are web-based networking services that enable individuals to build a public profile in an online social context, connect with other users, and browse others networks for creating new or further relationships and grasping new information. For more educational contexts, Conole and Alevizou (2010) contend that the students interactions and communications in SNSs such as Facebook, Classroom 2.0, and Ning.com can help students grasp issues in the class, share materials, manage

WEB 2.0 SOCIAL TECHNOLOGIES study groups, and so on. In this respect, students can create and join groups and pages in

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Facebook for their own interest with their peers or others who are in different fields, but have same interest. Through these social activities, not only can students build up their knowledge of interest, maintaining their social connections, but they also develop their professional careers, expanding their networks far beyond the extent to which they can do within traditional career developments. As an example, there is a Facebook group, called Instructional Designer, where individuals who are interested in instructional systems and technology can join, share information with members, and build collaborative learning outcomes by participating, discussing, and sharing. Through these informal learning activities, members in the group can access various issues on their fields without the restrictions of time and space, keep knowledge of interest up to date, and expand their social networks with other members from all over the world. More to the point, members in the group, Instructional Designer, have been collaboratively creating a document of useful and effective educational websites to improve their teaching and learning experiences, and thus now sharing information about more than 100 instructional websites.

Concept maps Concept maps are effective knowledge representation methods that are advantageous in both teaching but learning practices because of the feature of cognitive visualization skills. That is, concept maps have a specific label as a basic element for one concept in a title box or node with interconnected lines showing relationships and creating worthwhile meanings between the concepts (Novak & Canas, 2006). Martin (1994) defines concept maps as two-dimensional

WEB 2.0 SOCIAL TECHNOLOGIES representations of cognitive structures showing the hierarchies and the interconnections of

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concepts involved in a discipline or a subdiscipline. According to Villalon and Calvo (2011), concept maps as a cognitively visualizing technique show an individuals understanding of a topic by representing concepts and their relationships in hierarchically and equivalently arranged manners where the general and specific concepts are placed in a hierarchical order and the same or tantamount levels of concepts are grouped together. With regard to the effectiveness of concept maps in educational venues, many educational researchers represent their positive thoughts on how concept maps influence on teaching and learning practices. Novak et al. (2006) argue that concept maps can be effectively used for educational purposes within the wide range of learning activities including information searching and organizing, collaborative group works, research preparation and presentation, and other educational activities. In addition, Trochim (1989) claims that planning and evaluating tasks can be extensively leveraged by employing concept maps into educational practices in that not only can primary objectives, applicable resources, and other activities of planning be visualized within concept maps, but also dimensions of evaluation such as applications and measurements for evaluating and outcomes of learning activities can be effectively centralized into concept maps.

Media sharing As one key tool of Web 2.0 technologies in education, media sharing has been of great importance in informal learning environments, enabling individual learners to share the content generated by themselves or others under the agreement to be shared over the networks. And the range of the media for sharing is diverse from documents, images, audios (podcasts), to videos

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(vidcasts) (Conole & Alevizou, 2010). Moreover, according to Armstrong and Franklin (2008), media sharing services allow not only sharers to post and tag their content with descriptions and key words for effective use and further sharing, but also viewers to review, comment, and rate the media shared for facilitating the improvements of the quality and the sharing environments of educational artifacts. Regarding the applicable uses of media sharing services, many studies (Cobb, 2010; Grosseck, 2009) emphasize that educators and learners have a variety of options to utilize the ideas of media sharing in their teaching and learning experiences. These comprise the continuation of instructional practices and group discourses with shared materials as well as the inspiration of critical thinking and creative writing opportunities and the feedback and evaluation of the content shared on the web. For example, learners, whenever and wherever the Internet networks are available, can continue their learning activities with the shared materials by accessing, reading, commenting, and further sharing. In addition, educators and learners can be involved in a group discourse over a shared content, reading, conversing, and watching it together through the Internet. From the rating and evaluating perspective over media sharing services, Grosseck (2009) indicates that individuals as media consumers, on one hand, can improve their critical thinking and creative writing capabilities, while reviewing, rating the shared materials, and commenting on them. On the other hand, content creators can objectively evaluate their shared media with the rates and comments by their peers or wider audiences, can obtain great insights by the responses of the shared materials from content consumers, and thus can improve the quality such as relatedness of contents, design, levels of knowledge depth of the media shared on the web.

Cloud library for social reading

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Since social technologies such as Web 2.0, social media, and cloud computing over the web provide Internet users with authentic opportunities to facilitate their educational experiences and continue their learning practices in the context of online networks, educators and learners can also build their online social bookshelves on the web by social cloud computing, thus pursuing their social reading whenever they want at wherever and with whatever computing devices at their own paces. Johnson, Adams, and Cummins (2012) state in the 2012 Horizon Report that todays learners in the concept of social reading, which means the convergence of interactive e-books and social networking services, not only can create their cloud libraries for their formal and informal reading practices but also can annotate their electronic books, bookmark it by highlighting sentences and paragraphs as key parts, and share it with peers and the general public via social networking services such as Facebook and Twitter. With this cloud library, users can easily create content folders with many class reading materials, share their readings and notes on materials with their classmates, and possibly hold meaningful discourses regarding issues appeared in the readings over the web. For example, in order to build virtual bookshelves, individuals can use cloud library services including Slideshare for presentations and e-books with each page view, Scribd for e-books and documents with the whole page views by scrolling, and ISSUU for interactive reading experiences with the various types of e-books and reading materials.

Conclusion Education in the twenty first century, which referred as the knowledge age, cannot help being considered with communicative and social technologies such as computers, mobile devices, web applications, and social media. The essential backgrounds of this notion can be

WEB 2.0 SOCIAL TECHNOLOGIES found in that not only have our educational environments and social technologies been reciprocally functioning to one another by influencing and transforming mutually through computing and social networking innovations, but the strengthened interactions between

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educational practices and technologies have been also redesigning the educational environments for advanced instructive experiences and reshaping the ways with which educators and learners communicate and interact (Harasim, 2011). Based on many studies relating to utilizing Web 2.0 social applications for educational purposes, Web 2.0 tools and social media have great evidences and potential for both educators and learners to facilitate their educational experiences, continue their instructional practices regardless of in and outside school, and inspire more authentic, profound, and critical education with valuable initiatives and motivations, which are supported by the features of Web 2.0 social technologies such as open culture, participation, collaboration, promptness, and sharing (Dede, 2011; Conole et al., 2010; U.S. Department of Education, 2010; & Armstrong et al., 2008). Within these sufficient instructional resources and rich educational environments supported by Web 2.0 social technologies, teachers and students today have the critical keys to plan, search, and organize information and knowledge they need to have as well as to manage, monitor, and evaluate their educational circumstances and artifacts. Therefore, they can improve the effectiveness and efficiency of their teaching and learning experiences by more interactively and flexibly pursuing their educational activities with Web 2.0 applications and social media.

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