Like any developing technology, the new World Wide Web, better known as Web 2.0, can be challenging to define. What’s more, its potential can be obscured by its hype. It’s the potential, though, that appeals to Jeffrey Yan, an adjunct facility member at Rhode Island School of Design and the CEO of Digication, an educational software company intent on bringing new ideas and attitudes into the old classroom.
PBN: There seems to be some ambiguity about Web 2.0. How do you define it?
YAN: One big idea about Web 2.0 is the social network … [which] lets the users drive the application. Another thing is the application language AJAX, which was formalized around the time Google Maps were introduced. It allows the user interface to act like a desktop application. Something else that’s less talked about is the RSS [Real Simple Syndication] feed. It allows users to subscribe to receive the latest news at a site.
The “mashup” is another component. Companies like Google offer APIs [Application Program Interfaces] to the outside world. They allow outside developers to have access to some of the features of the Web-based software. People have taken APIs from one service and another service, put them together, and created a third application out of them – such as taking housing listings from CraigsList and mapping them using Google Maps.
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PBN: In addition to those nuts-and-bolts features, do Web 2.0 developers have a different attitude than their predecessors?
YAN: Yes. They see their Web applications more as software, as something people can use. They are using the Web much more as a platform. … Fast-moving development is also part of that attitude. Developers used to want to make the perfect piece of software, burn it to a CD and ship it out. Once it was shipped out, it was very hard to make changes. Today, the attitude is, we can put something out there, let users use it, observe how they are using it and then make quick adjustments to the Web software so users can immediately benefit from those changes without updates, installations or patches.
PBN: The motto of your company, Digication, is “simple by design.” What does that mean?
YAN: In education software, there are companies that have dominated the market since the late 1990s. … Over the years, they have kept adding features to their products, making them very cluttered and difficult to use. As a result, they have a very low adoption rate. That’s a big problem to me, because I believe that software is not good if it’s not being used. … Simple by design means we’re always looking for ways to trim off features. We’re always looking at how we can make an application simpler and leaner, as opposed to adding more bells and whistles. That’s a trait of a lot of Web 2.0 companies. It creates an easy learning curve, and an application that’s much easier to maintain and runs on less expensive hardware. Schools expect training is needed for using a piece of software. Ours does not require training. Does anyone need training to use Yahoo Mail? Does anyone need training to use Google Maps?
PBN: What role does design play in that kind of simplicity?
YAN: The graphical user interface is extremely important, but it is only one component. Simple by design means not only graphics design, but the architecture of the software and the philosophy behind it. We don’t design the software at the back end and graph a pretty face on it.
PBN: How can Web 2.0 applications and social networking be used in the classroom to improve a student’s educational experience?
YAN: What we have now are learning management systems. They are pretty much focused on one-way communication, with maybe a discussion board. They require teachers to put together some sort of definitive guide or bible on their subject. They put that online and more or less predict what the class is going to do with it. Students react to the material on their own, unaware that there are others in their classroom. What Web 2.0 can bring to the classroom is, allow communication to take on a greater role in the online learning space. It’s much more fun to find answers together. By doing that, you can avoid situations where a class becomes dominated by a small number of students. Web 2.0 can democratize a classroom. It allows everyone to have a chance to communicate and express themselves. By empowering students, it motivates them to do better work, to get involved.
