Facebook Is The Malt Shop Of The 21st Century Or Where Do You Hang Out?...

This post is one from my To-Do list. Thought it was about time I got around to this - some thoughts on how we as a species, at least in the connected world, have changed how we meet people, make friends, and hang out...

When I was growing up we hung out at drive-ins, bowling alleys, hockey rinks, community centres, sports fields, and other real spaces. The people we met and the friends we made were local and we met face to face. I moved around a lot as an army brat and over the years lost track of old friends, making new friends at our new posting. Some you kept in touch with by letters, but I was (and am) a lousy letter writer. Our friends were "real" we knew their names and we knew what they looked like.

Welcome to 2009 and Web 2.0, virtual worlds, micro-blogging sites like Twitter, and social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Orkut (among literally hundreds), not to mention online dating sites like e-Harmony. The whole meeting, making, and keeping friends paradigm has changed. You can now meet people from all over the world, get to know them and create lasting friendships and relationships without ever meeting. Staying "in touch" is easy and is now pushed to your friends by simply updating your status. You can develop a deep or lasting relationship that once it becomes face to face (or "real" as some would say) continues to be stroong.

The question is can you be friends with someone you have never met? My answer to that question is yes. I know several people that I consider friends who I have never met face to face, yet our relationships are normal and friendly. I've met most of these people through Second Life, and some through Facebook. Some I have met face to face in the "real world", some I will probably never meet yet I still consider them friends and no less a friend simply because we have never met face to face. What sites like Facebook and Second Life have done is simply expanded my "First Life" - my social circles and networks are now global, not loacal...

Anna Pickard in the Guardian posted an article called "Virtual people, real friends" (thanks to Randommind for finding this). It's a great read and makes the point that you can have real friends with virtual people. In the article Anna says:

"The friends I've made online – from blogging in particular, be they other bloggers or commenters on this or my own site – are the best friends I now have. And yet, when I say this to people, many times they'll look at me like I'm a social failure; and when surveys like this are reported, it's always with a slight air of being the "It's a crazy, crazy, crazy world!" item last thing on the news. Some portions of my family still refer to my partner of six years as my "Internet Boyfriend".

Call me naive, but far from being the bottomless repository of oddballs and potential serial killers, the internet is full of lively minded, like-minded engaging people – for the first time in history we're lucky enough to choose friends not by location or luck, but pinpoint perfect friends by rounding up people with amazingly similar interests, matching politics, senses of humour, passionate feelings about the most infinitesimally tiny hobby communities. The friends I have now might be spread wide, geographically, but I'm closer to them than anyone I went to school with, by about a million miles.

For me, and people like me who might be a little shy or socially awkward – and there are plenty of us about – moving conversations and friendships from the net to a coffee shop table or the bar stool is a much more organic, normal process than people who spend less time online might expect.

Depending on the root of the friendship, on where the conversation started, the benefit is clear – you cut out the tedium of small talk. What could be better?"

This is the new reality of where people are "hanging out" and meeting - many social places of my youth are gone or are no longer safe to hang out at - we have switched to an online world of common interests, acquaintances, linked friends (the real six degrees of separation), and online communities where we meet and make friends.

This new reality has implications for educators too - our learners are hanging out in these new online spaces, making friends, collaborating, defining relationships and creating networks. We need to understand how this works, understand that friends made in this new paradigm are just as real and just as important as any "real-world" friends and that these virtual friends will impact on learning environments and how we will relate to our learners.

As we move to more and more blended or online deliveries, many of our learners will only be known to us through their online presence. Does that make them any less a learner or are the friendships and relationships they develop with their classmates and us any less relevant or important? Hmmm...




(Photo - "Blast From The Past" by Steve_Tango)

CIT 2007 - Opening General Session - Dr. Mark Milliron

Dr. Mark Milliron, president and CEO of Catalyze Learning International, was the opening general session keynote speaker. As such he is recognized as a leader in educational leadership and the use of technology in education. An extremely engaging speaker he talked about the changing face of learners and how technology and tools like social networking are going to change the face of community college education.

Community Colleges are preparing for multiple generations of learners and have to be prepared for all of them:

Baby Boomers (the family generation)
Gen X (the ME generation)
Net Gen (the WE generation, or as I have heard it coined, the "XBox generation")

Along with this we have to realize that there is an ongoing digital divide - broadband vs. dialup and that there are still dialup ghettos that will impact how and what technology can be delivered to learners.

Dr. Milliron talked about what is in store:

• Attract, Service, Retain and engage learners
• Visioning
• Planning
• Fund raising
• Capital
• Operational funds
• Maintenance funds
• Sustainable Learning Environments

We are going to see the following things influence how we will provide learning opportunities to our learners:

• Blurring and Blending
• Mobility Galore
• Gaming
• Social Networking
• High Impact Presentations/Engagement
• Analytics, Diagnostics, Evidence-based education
• The Human Touch
  

For blurring an blending we will see models of 20% of learners online, 20% face to face and the remainder taking a blended approach to their education. I know that this is something that I ned to take very seriously as an educator when looking at maintaining and developing curriculum and programmes.

Mobility galore - m-learning will be big - learners need access - the oasis effect - free wireless will keep learners engaged and on campus

Gaming - a whole different way to learn. Look at seriousgames.org and americasarmy.com for examples.

Social Networking is engaging and connecting - collaboration is key. Second Life - a bridge between gaming and education. Of the social networking sites Dr. Milliron compared MySpace as Bart and Facebook as Lisa (or Potsie and Ritchie depending on your generational analogies...). The OER Commons is social networking for faculty.

Take your work seriously and yourself lightly when dealing with net geners (makes sense and it works in my experience). Sixteen to twenty-year olds want IM or chat - not email or readings "EMails are whta old folks send me" - so true - just try getting learners to read their e-mails - Facebook a much faster way to communicate with them.

We need to build buildings with high impact presentation technologies and tools in them - retrofitting no longer working.

The use of analytics to determine the best use of resources is a critical process that we need to start using, just as the gaming industry has been doing for years.

On the Human Touch we need to have the courage to be open to opportunities, the courage to catalyze the conversation, and the courage to learn.

We need to engage all learners in this process, including the CAVE people - Colleagues Against Virtually Everything (and you know who you are..).

A great keynote to kick off CIT 2007 - what we need to do as we look forward and the good news for me is that I get it it. Can't wait to see what the rest of CIT 2007 brings...

When Does a Blog Become a Web Site?...

When does a blog become a Web site? I've been asking myself that question the last little while as I take a look at my blog and at the blogs of friends and those that I read on a regular basis. When I started writing my blog it was just that - a place to write down some thoughts - sort of a blank journal. It had a couple of extras - my profile, a picture of me and the Blog archive - neat, clean, no fuss, no muss.

Now look at my blog - at last count there were 19 different things, widgets, components, add-ons, whatever you want to call them - from links to blogs I read, my wiki, my Flickr site, my Facebook profile, blog aggregator sites like Technorati, Feedburner, Netvibes, PageFlakes, and EduSpaces. I can chat through Meebo and stay in touch with Twitter. I can tell how many people are reading my blog through ClustrMaps (come on people where are you?), and I even have pictures of my favourite bloggers on my blog through Feevy.

When did my blog get so crowded anyway? It all just sort of snuck up on me. The other thing is now whenever I set up a profile in Facebook, Orkut, LinkedIn or any other social media site, I always put my blog as my web site. I own a domain but haven't done anything with it (I really should) because I'm not a really big fan of "vanity" Web sites. But if you take a look at my blog - vanity thy name is...Me! Hmmm...

We Need A Meebo For Social Networks

A year or two ago if you had asked me what the most social tool that I was using, I would have said instant messaging (IM) software. I used ICQ, MSN (now Windows Live Messenger), and Google Talk to communicate with learners, colleagues, and friends. Thing was, I used all three separately, and had separate lists of contacts on each application.

But that changed with Meebo which allows me to have one single interface regardless of the IM client I was using - I broke down the IM silos (there is also Trillian, but it is an application that needs to be installed on individual computers - not quite as portable as Meebo). With Meebo I can be on a PC or Mac, and I can be in just any type of Web browser or device - universal chat - it has significantly expanded the IM horizon for me, extending the life and application of IM as a social tool that I can use.

But I am not using IM much these days (although with Meebo and now iChat in OS X Leopard I may be using it more...) my main social networking tools these days are social networking sites - the ones I use on a regular basis include Facebook, LinkedIn, Bebo, Orkut, EduSpaces (ELGG), Ning, and Google Groups (not to mention my blogs and wikis). that's seven different clients, all Web browser-based, but all with their own interface, own friends list, and own way of doing things. None of them can talk to each other - social networking silos.

We need a Meebo for social networking sites - a killer application that will allow me to communicate with all my fiends across all seven of the social networking sites that I now use - a completely transparent experience that will simply let me be social, not have to worry about what friend is on what service - that would be true social networking. As social networking continues to be a big part of people's online lives and becomes a bigger component of education, we need to be able to break down the silos of proprietary applications and interfaces and simply get people networking.

According to Wikipedia, there are currently 116 (and counting) different social networking Web sites - so if there is someone out there thinking that they would like to create the next great application, start thinking about a Meebo for social networking...

Are My Virtual Friends Real? ...

A recent article online at Information Week "MySpace Friends May Not Be Real", has got me thinking about the people that I have only met virtually and that I consider to be friends - are they real friends?

For me a friend is someone that I share common interests with, that I correspond with somehow on a fairly regular basis, and who knows more about me than name, rank, and serial number. I also know something about them and a friend is also someone who I want to talk to to ask questions of, to get their opinions on issues and to debate, discuss, and yes even argue with about the issues of the moment.

Using this criteria, I have several friends that I have never met anywhere other than online, mostly in Second Life where they are represented by their avatars. I consider many of these people to be good friends. In fact when I met one of my Second Life friends face to face in the real world this past summer for the very first time it was as if we had known each other for years (and in fact we have, just virtually).

I currently have almost 150 "friends" in Facebook. Are they all really friends - many are not, but many are and again, there are some who I have not net in the real world, although they are in the small minority. I find that for me Facebook has been a way to connect with colleagues and learners, and to stay in touch with old friends from the past. So on that point I do agree with the Information Week article - there is an element in social networking (for me at least) that requires some sort of face to face or real world connection in order to develop any sort of lasting bond.

This is not true though in my experience with virtual worlds such as Second Life. Whether it is because of the visual component, the chatting, and now voice, I feel no differently about my SL friends than I do about my real world friends. If they meet my criteria, they are a friend. I think that this is significant for me as an educator as more and more I will be dealing with learners and fellow facilitators that I will never meet face to face, yet I will need to develop relationships with. I think that it will mean that the definition of what a friend is and how we develop friendships will have to change. After all, these days just about everyone knows a couple that met on the Internet - are their relationships any less real or meaningful? We will need to redefine relationships and societal norms and here is an example of some of the issues and problems that could arise from the Wall Street Journal - "Is This Man Cheating On His Wife? It's a valid question - as the tools and means that we use to socialize evolve, so too must our conceptions and definitions of friends and relationships, and how we interact with each other, both in virtual and real settings

So, are my virtual friends real? They are to me...

E-Mail Is Dead! Long Live ??...

This post "Is E-Mail On The Way Out?" from the Adaptive Path blog (you should add it's feed to your RSS aggregator ASAP), got me thinking again about the use and lifespan of e-mail. Is e-mail dead? Not yet, but I think it is starting to not feel so well. I still run my life with e-mail, it's my main form of business communication certainly, but there are other tools and technologies creeping in and my e-mail clients should be worried.

If I take a moment and look at all of the tools that I am using to communicate and share with people in my personal life, e-mail is probably now the least used tool - I use Twitter to update my comings and goings (but I need to get better at it), Facebook for just about everything that is me, Skype to stay in touch and communicate visually and by voice, Blogger to express and share my thoughts, Google Docs and Spreadsheets and Google Groups to collaborate, and many other tools and technologies as the mood strikes.There isn't any room for e-mail in my personal life anymore.

And to top it all off I get most of this information pushed to me, not to my computer, but to my cell phone - I am truly mobile.

Now I am not actually saying that e-mail is dead - it is still the tool I use and most people use for business communication, and I don't see that changing anytime soon, but as an educator I have come to see learners who don't use e-mail regularly if at all anymore (just ask them if they read that important announcement sent to their College e-mail account if you don't believe me). Learners are telling me that e-mail is dull and slow, that it's not immediate enough - they prefer IM or Facebook, or some other more immediate form of communication.

I asked a first year IT class to make a choice - do without e-mail, or do without Internet access - it was unanimous - 100% offered to give up their e-mail on the spot. Today's learners see e-mail as an old, tired technology; one that is not agile or immediate enough for their needs. As educators we need to be where are learners are, and to get there we need to embrace the changing technologies and engage with them - and you know I have - and they are right - e-mail is old and slow! I actually can go for days not checking my personal e-mail account, but I am on Facebook every day - it's one of my home page tabs...

So if e-mail is dead - what will replace it? Well whatever it is, I think it will be more open and social than the closed system of sending a message to a finite number of addressees. It may be Facebook or its successor, or twitter, or a combination of more than one tool. Whatever it will be it will be accessed more on mobile devices than computers, that I know for sure. The only thing that I haven't quite got my head around is how confidential matters will be handled, so maybe there will always be a small corner in the room for e-mail or its closed successor. Hmmm...

(Photo - "Tools of the Trade" by tim_d)

Is Facebook Going To Be The Next Microsoft?

Techcrunch has an interesting article posing the question "Could Facebook Become the Next Microsoft?". The article notes several similarities between the early days of Microsoft and where Facebook is today. Facebook is being adopted by the masses, many of whom are not "traditional" users of Web 2.0 or social networking sites (grandparents, digital immigrants, companies etc.), similar to Microsoft's initial growth.

The addition of third-party applications to the Facebook interface has greatly expanded and enhanced the use of Facebook, far beyond it's social aspects - it can do just about anything - limited only by it's users' imaginations. As it grows, Facebook is effectively becoming a Web OS - I know that I spend a lot of time on Facebook doing tasks that at one time I used other tools - e-mail, chat, etc. If Facebook becomes the number one destination on the Web, what are the implications for other Web 2.0 sites (ask DOS and WordPerfect that question in relation to Microsoft...). Will Facebook do the social Web what Microsoft Windows did to its competition? Right now we ave lots of Web 2.0 choices on the Web - but will they or can they last against the tidal wave that is Facebook?

The article goes on to compare Facebook with Google and right now give the advantage to Facebook for having better "glue", linking all of its offerings together.

There is a cautionary tale though - Facebook is a closed environment right now (Microsoft Windows anyone?), and could that lack of openness eventually lead to its downfall in the worlds of Web 3.0, 4.0,5.0, and beyond? Hmmm...

(Image from Facebook)

Social Networking In Plain English

Here is another great video from Common Craft - "Social Networking in Plain English" - if you have ever thought about getting involved with social networking or one of the social networking sites (Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn),but aren't sure what it is all about, then this video is for you:

Me And My Shadow (Are Getting Smaller)

I am six feet six tall (1.98 metres, 198 centimetres, however you want to measure it). I've been that tall since I was 14. The problem is, that while I figured out the whole vertical growth thing at an early age, I have yet to discover how to stop the horizontal growth thing. I have been wider and narrower, then wider again most of my life. My problem is a common one - all the things that I love to eat are not so kind to me, and I just have to look at food and it becomes a nine-year old wrapped around my waist. Oh yeah, and I could exercise more too...

But I think I have found a solution - and it's social networking. This spring I bought a pedometer and set the goal of walking a minimum of 10,000 paces a day. So far I am down two belt notches so it is slowly, but surely working. But it's not the walking that's doing it - it's all of you.

I have been posting my daily pace count on Facebook and the notes and encouragement ( and needling and abuse if I miss a day or post a low number) that I have been getting from my friends have been the momentum and incentive that I have needed to succeed. So thank you very much for pushing me, and please keep it up. I hope to have only a six year old around my waist by the end of the summer and then who knows (oh yeah - I do - I've committed to gasping my way through the Bluenose 10 Km race (a slow jog for me) in May 2008). There I said it - it's public, so start pushing...

Ain't social networking grand?

Facebook as PLE - Part Two - The Plot Thickens...

I recently posted my thoughts about Facebook being an ideal environment for the creation of PLEs (Personal Learning Environments). I firmly believe that PLEs are the future of learning-centred adult education. PLEs ARE all about the learners - what they want to learn, how they want to learn it, how they want to share what they learn, when they want to learn, and what tools they will use in order for THEIR learning to occur.

Yesterday my friend Carolyn (Randommind) introduced me to Mosoto. Mosoto is a Web 2.0, Flash-based application that allows users to "share, chat, and discover". More importantly it fully integrates into Facebook. You can add Mosoto to you Facebook profile as one of the many Facebook Applications now available that have revolutionized Facebook.

Here is the description of Mosoto from its Web site:

"Mosoto is a new way to share and connect with your Facebook friends. With Mosoto you can easily share files, chat with friends and discover people and media in your social network. Because Mosoto is built on top of Facebook your friends and social network are already here. Mosoto is streaming social media."

Mosoto adds simple, easy to use synchronous chat, file sharing, and more to Facebook. It allows users to create private "rooms" or chats, an amazingly powerful learning tool. Combined with many of the Facebook applications mentioned in my earlier post, Mosoto provides a rich customizable learning environment - in short a PLE.

PLEs are an amazing opportunity to engage learners that many institutions may be missing due to geography, learning style, time, or dissatisfaction with "traditional" learning approaches and environments. PLEs are not just an alternate delivery or distance learning tool either. I fully believe that they will work well in classrooms, online, and in learning environments not yet thought of and that Facebook is the tool that will let this happen.

I am now convinced that I will allow and encourage my learners this coming fall to create their own PLEs and I will suggest to them that Facebook is a great place to start that PLE development. Facebook's combination of social networking, customizable environment, and ever-increasing list of easy to use applications makes it the ideal PLE development platform.

Over the next while I am going to build my own PLE using Facebook and I will share it with you once it is done. Of course being a PLE it will never actually be done, but rather will be in a state of constant renewal and evolution, so I will be looking for your feedback and comments ...

Facebook as PLE - I Have Seen The Future!

There has been a lot written lately about Facebook, both pro and con. Several institutions have actually banned their employees from using Facebook on organization machines. Many school boards have restricted its use.

But there are a lot of positive things about Facebook. I've been using it as a mean of creating alumni groups of former and current learners as a way of staying in touch and developing industry networks. We have posted employment opportunities to Facebook groups created for our programmes (as have learners) and we have had learners get employment offers through jobs found on Facebook. That is a great thing. I am actively exploring the creation and use of Facebook groups for my courses as a way of assisting learners to get to know each other better and to provide a social networking opportunity that hopefully will result in greater engagement and a more positive learning experience.

The real excitement for me though is the recent announcement that Face book is allowing third-party companies access to its API for the creation of Facebook applications. The launch of the Facebook Platform will add an incredible amount of functionality and customizability to Facebook. Some of the early adopters of this platform include apps for file sharing, voice, video, and links to other Web 2.0 applications like Twitter and RSS feeds.

So what does this mean? Well for me it means that Facebook is well on its way to becoming the ideal tool for the creation of Personal Learning Environments or PLEs. The ability for users of Facebook to customize their environment so that they can receive and share information with others will create and even more powerful social phenomenon than Facebook currently is. With available chat, RSS, file and picture sharing, the potential exists for learning to occur in a whole new learning-centred way. I see Facebook and the learners who use it becoming the content generators and consumers of future learning environments. The currently available applications already have the [potential for creating rich learning experiences - I can hardly wait to see what applications get added to Facebook over the coming months - Facebook as learning manager or portal - what does it mean for out current established base of Learning Management Systems (LMSs)?

I definitely know that I will be exploring the available third-party applications in Facebook to determine how they might be used for the development of learning environments for my courses. To start with I have added the following applications to my Facebook page (I am sure that there will be more ...):

• Picnik - photo editing and sharing
  
• WalkieTalkie - voice chat
  
• RSSbook - RSS aggregator
  
• Twitter - integrate smy Twitter account in Facebook
  
• Files - upload and share files
  
• Docs - Facebook docs is the Great Library of Schoolwork where anyone can contribute

The addition of third-party applications to Facebook may just be the "killer" Web 2.0 app that everyone has been waiting for...

The Facebook Saga Continues...

I awoke this morning to a front-page story in the Halifax Chronicle-Herald - "No classes for no-class acts". Four to six students at a local high school have been suspended and are under police investigation for remarks they posted on a Facebook page about one of their teachers. The remarks were inappropriate and insensitive, and personally I agree with the actions taken - users of social networking sites should still maintain some level of decency and common sense.

The Halifax Regional School Board (HRSB) has blocked Facebook, MySpace, and MSN Messenger (and probably many other social networking sites) from all school computers due to the "distractions" that they cause and that school computers are only for school use. They have also been blocked to attempt to reduce cyber-bullying, where students gang up on each other online, a noble intent.

As posted by Randommind, the Ontario provincial government has banned Facebook, and now along with it, so has the city of Toronto, and Parliament Hill in Ottawa, both in an attempt to stop workers from "wasting" their time at work.

I see two issues here, but that may not be the case. In the case of the HRSB banning social networking sites, they are dealing with a constituency of primarily school-age minors. But does banning sites send the right message or should these students be educated in their use, so that when they become adult workers they won't "waste" time? For all of the parents out there - what age is the right age to allow access to social networking sites? Are they something only adults should have free and unfettered access to? Do they need parental controls or some similar way to limit access and functionality?

I teach at a community college where the learners are adult, both in age and in the way they are treated. What rules apply for Facebook et al? Free access or banning? Does the college need a policy for proper use? Is that even feasible or realistic? How do I react if a learner posts something insulting or inappropriate about me?

The second issue is the continuing banning of Facebook by public agencies whose main function is dealing with the public. Wouldn't it make more sense to use Facebook and other social networking tools to increase access? Hmmm...

Lots of question, and not lots of answers. The saga continues...

Randommind - A Must Read - The Sequel

I have already told you that Randommind is a must read blog (my friend Carolyn is amazing - so insightful and always on topic), but there are two recent posts on the blog that really are must reads.

The first one is PLE ON A Cellphone?. What an incredible idea and what an AHA! moment for me. Talk about breaking down the walls of education. I am a big believer that PLEs are going to have a major impact on my learners and myself in the next few years. What an amazing concept - create a learning environment that works for you, the learner. To take it the next step and make it mobile - too cool. Just think of the learning opportunities... Check out the post.

The second post is Facebook Banned By Ontario Government. The Ontario government has banned provincial employees from using Facebook, which I find just mind-boggling. I'm currently using Facebook as a way to stay in touch with past, current, and even some future learners (not to mention colleagues, friends, and even some complete strangers) - it's a very powerful tool for getting information out. I've had learners get work from jobs and opportunities posted by other learners - too cool! I am seriously looking at Facebook as a learning tool (a future post).

If one of the jobs of a provincial government is to stay in touch with the residents of the province what better way to do it than Facebook. Like Randommind says in her post, even the Premier of Nova Scotia has a Facebook site. The reaction of the Ontario government to Facebook reminds me of the way a lot of organizations reacted years ago to the use of the Internet during working hours placing restrictions on its use. Well those restrictions are mainly gone now, and I suspect the same will happen with Facebook - it is just too valuable and useful a communication tool.

Thanks for the always great stuff Carolyn. I can't wait for your next post...

The Parking Lot, Or Hang On I'll Get Back To You...

I see and hear a lot of things that I think at the moment "hey that would make a good blog post", and then I usually forget all about them. So I thought I would star a "parking lot" post where I could jot down some of the things that I think would make a good blog post before I forget them. That way I have a place to come back to when I feel the need to post. It may also serve as a way to start conversations with readers of this blog. So without further ado, here are my first parking lot items:

• 21st Century education - is there a paradigm shift happening?
• Using Facebook as a learning environment
• Conservative MP Introduces 'Clean Internet Act'
• Seven Rules of Web 2.0
• Using Facebook responsibly
• Don't Tell Your Parents: Schools Embrace MySpace
• ?...

I can't promise I wil ever post on any of these, but now I have a place to come back to for topics of interest to me, and maybe you too. Who knows, maybe I'll combine them into one big mega-post. Hmmm...

My Web 2.0 Toolkit

I've been exploring and using all sorts of Web 2.0 tools and technologies for some time now and thought I would share the ones that make up my "Web 2.0 Toolkit". These are the Web 2.0 tools that I use pretty much everyday in both my personal life and as an adult educator. So, in no particular order, here they are:

• Blogging - Well - I'm obviously using Blogger, but Wordpress is pretty cool too
• RSS - I'm sold on Netvibes - it's become my number one source of online information - I literally get hundreds of feeds from it daily
• Pictures - Flickr and Photobucket. I use Flickr for storing and showing off my photos and Photobucket for my stock photos that I use on line. I also use flickrCC to find stock photos online (remember to abide by the licensing terms of the owners - msot use one of the Creative Commons licenses)
  
• Wikis - I have several different wikis now at wikispaces but pbwiki is a really good tool as well. Wikis are a great educational tool, particularly if you get your learners to maintain them. A good way to answer the question "What do we do now that the course is over?".
  
• Collaboration - Google Groups and Google Notebook. Two great tools from Google, I plan on using them to replace textbooks in my courses.
• To-do List - Remember The Milk is an easy to use to-do list that keeps me on track
• Calendar tool - Google Calendar - just about runs my life now, would be lost without it - and I can share my calendar too so people know what's going on with me.
  
• Social Networking - Facebook - a great tool for staying in touch, I'm in the process of setting up an alumni group for my former students
• Video conversions - Vixy.net is great if you absolutely must have a local copy of that favourite online video. A great tool if you don't always have a high-speed Internet connection
  
• Staying current - Twitter is a great tool for letting people know where you are and what you are up to although I do not use it nearly as much as some. I actually use the custom status messages in GMail more
• Conferencing - Elluminate's vRoom - a great free tool from Elluminate gives you all of the capabilities of Elluminate except for recording and a limit of three sites. Not really a Web 2.0 tool (try Vyew if you want a Web-based conferencing tool).
  

Well there you have it - my current Web 2.0 toolkit - I am sure that it will continue to evolve over the months to come and I'll do my best to let you know what I am using...

(Photo from David Babylon)