Never mind the technology, where’s the learning?

We all know that the philosophy and concepts behind Web 2.0 are here to stay (for a little while anyway), but can educators rely on their favourite online tools being around that long? Doing a trawl through, it would seem that the ‘beta’ Web 2.0 app, is really that. Users can be left high and dry after as little as six months. Vicki’s class had just got into using Lively for a real educational purpose when the rug was pulled from under them, and Yahoo have just  thrown Jumpcut into the deadpool, a free online video editing service that I was prone to recommend to teachers. TechCrunch has tagged 99 stories with ‘deadpool’ over the last 12 months, compared with 56 in 2007 and with recession biting in 2009 there no doubt will be many more.

Educators have to realise that one business strategy of these beta start-ups is to get bought up by the likes of Yahoo, Google or Microsoft and then shut-down! However, it’s a little sad that their innovative technology does not necessarily get transferred over to their bigger rival. For example, Jumpcut now suggests you use Flickr (also owned by Yahoo) to upload and share movies, but the mash-up editing feature of Jumpcut is what makes it exciting for learning. Similarly, I loved Omnisio because you could integrate movies with Powerpoint slides, but its commenting feature made it a rival to Google’s YouTube, and as a result it got bought by them. Now Omnisio, like Jumpcut, is just a dead depository of creative work by those that explored the boundaries of Web 2.0. with no sign of other features being transferred to the larger service.

So what can educators do? There’s no sure and fast guarantee that you can rely on something you did with your class six months ago being available the next time around, and hedging on the large companies such as Google provides no assurance either.

Image credit: c_

Tags: deadpool, Web 2.0, education