--- Forwarded Message from Dick House <[log in to unmask]> ---
>To: [log in to unmask]
>From: Dick House <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Web 2.0 in our Daily Lives [NERALLT]
>Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 09:13:38 -0400
Hello !
This is a gentle reminder that if you are planning to attend NERALLT's
October 25/26 Meeting at Saint Michael's in Vermont, now's the time to
sign up.
You can do this at http://www2.smcvt.edu/llrc/nerallt/ .
If you're NOT intending to come, please reconsider. The topic of Web
2.0, far from being old hat already, is becoming more important to all
of us in the field of language learning.
Web 2.0 is also important in the lives of our students generally.
Consider the following excerpt from a recent piece by John C. Dvorak in
the August 7th issue of PC Magazine, entitled "Where Yahoo! Went
Wrong."
"...but show business does not have a lock on either entertainment
or the definition of entertainment. It's a huge mistake to think that
it does. So, it's no surprise that Yahoo!, under the leadership of a
Hollywood entertainment guy, has lost ground to everyone and everything
with wrong-headed thinking.
The irony of this situation is that Yahoo! began as a
community-centric directory that involved users in its evolution as a
fine search engine. Yahoo! was built on bottom-up thinking, which is
more important in the Web 2.0 era than ever. But it gave up on that
kind of thinking so that it could align itself with Hollywood and be
more entertaining.
News flash: People are entertained by community activity."
This "news flash" affects us all as purveyers of technology, since the
real draw for the 20-year-old learner of today rests more in how we
make use of that technology than in the technology itself. This brings
to mind the looming tension inherent in the initiatives of textbook
companies to provide "portals" for each of their books. The
"community" which they are developing is being created according to
their conception of what's needed, and less according to what one might
call "local control."
These and other related issues will be floating about during the
NERALLT conference, and I hope that you will join us in Vermont as we
consider Web 2.0.
http://www2.smcvt.edu/llrc/nerallt/
- Dick House, President
NERALLT
Richard C House, Director
Language Resource Center
University of New Hampshire
Durham, NH 03824
603.862.3556
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Otmar Foelsche, LLTI-Editor ([log in to unmask])
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