Online and Distance Learning.com

This page provides details of and links to some of the important movements in the development of software or e-tools that have impacted on, and continue to impact on, how individuals and communities communicate and learn.

The most noticeable development in terms of e-tools is what is known as "Web 2.0", in which social software is used to facilitate collaboration and sharing between users. This computer-mediated communication has become very popular with sites like MySpace and YouTube.

Computing is no longer a lonely business - it is something that is sociable - in a virtual way. People can share their ideas, their hopes, their frustrations or just vent their feelings about any particular topic.

These tools encourage self-publishing or online journalism, where people express their points of view on their websites. There is a wide range of these types of tools, including:

• Blogs: Short for weblog. Journal or newsletter that is frequently updated and intended public viewing. Users post informal journals of their thoughts, comments, and philosophies and reflecting their views.
• Chats: Places on the Internet where people with similar interests meet and communicate together by typing instant messages. Can involve two or more people.
• Discussion boards or forums: Online discussion groups, where participants with common interests exchange open messages. Subscribers post messages for others to read, and to reply to messages posted by other users.
• E-mail: Electronic mail system that can be used to send plain text or text with attachments.
• Instant messages: Programs that instantly send messages from one computer to another. Usually one-on-one communication.
• Podcasts: The term is derived from Apple’s iPod. It is a method of publishing mostly audio and video files to the Internet, allowing users to subscribe to receive new files.
• Social bookmarking: A system that enables users to store links to web pages and the resulting lists can be made accessible to other users of that bookmarking system.
• Social networking sites: These are sites where users can maintain links with their social networks and perhaps link to new people on the same site.
• Wikis: Server software that allows users to freely create and edit Web page content and hyperlinks using a web browser. Wiki comes from the Hawaiian word ‘wiki wiki’ meaning fast. The most famous wiki is wikipedia.