I discovered last evening (perhaps I am WAY behind the times) two articles I think are important for educators to read. Trying to explain the various components of Web 2.0 is tough to do because of its depth and breadth. These two articles, differing in scope and sometimes technical, do a good job at providing information as to where we have been, where we are today, and perhaps where we are going, with relation to changing use and access to networked resources. Either one of these articles would make a great starting point for a Professional Learning Community or study group!
Steve Downes
E-learning 2.0
Bryan Alexander
Web 2.0: A New Wave of Innovation for Teaching and Learning
PDF version of the above
Professional development tips:
On another note, sometimes people cannot get the sites that I link to...I check everything very carefully and, although links DO go bad, it is most probably something at your end-- a slow network, an older browser, etc., or something up with the server at their end.
Remember to try some problem-solving skills whenever you are trying to get to a URL that won't go. In this case, you have the authors' names and the titles of the articles, so you could try a Google search to see if you can find it on your own. You can right-click on the hypertext link, copy the URL, paste it into the browser address bar, and get rid of the last thing in the URL to see if you can get to the site at all.
