Week 10- How does the Semantic Web differ from web 3.0?

Web 3.0 is the next step in the internet. Web 2.0 gave us social networking such as facebook, myspace and bebo, as well as blogging,and other ways to communicate online.By the time web 3.0 comes around, the web will be able to 'connect every aspect of our digital lives - be it a website, an e-mail, or a file on our PC - to every other aspect. It will know, for instance, when you are typing an e-mail, what the subject of the e-mail is, and be able to suggest websites and books as well as documents, photos and videos you have saved that may be relevant to that topic.' (Richards 2007)

From what I can see, many people believe the Semantic Web and Web 3.0 to be the same thing, and to, me, they appear to do the same functions.However, some people suggest that rather than competing spaces they 'should be viewed as successive layers that are developing. By adding the semantic web to Web 2.0, we move conceptually closer to web 3.0. The underlying technologies of the Semantic Web, which enrich content and the intelligence of the social web, pulls in user profiles and identities, and must be combined for Web 3.0 to work.' (Cho 2008)

So it seems that the Semantic web is helping Web 3.0 to develop, and, when they work together, a new era of the web can be released.

Has anyone else found anything on this? I struggled on this question a bit!


Sources:

Richards, J (2007) ‘Web 3.0 and Beyond: The Next 20 Years of the Internet’, The Times Online, http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article2726190.ece [accessed 26/3/09]

Cho, A (2008), ;What is Web 3.0?’, Suite 101, http://internet.suite101.com/article.cfm/what_is_web_30 [accessed 26/3/09]

Week 10- What is the 'Semantic Web'?

"Currently the focus of a W3C working group, the Semantic Web vision was conceived by Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web. The World Wide Web changed the way we communicate, the way we do business, the way we seek information and entertainment – the very way most of us live our daily lives. Calling it the next step in Web evolution, Berners-Lee defines the Semantic Web as “a web of data that can be processed directly and indirectly by machines.” (Altova 2009)

The meaning behind the semantic web seems to be the idea that although the World Wide Web can give us information, it still need applications to run off that information. The Semantic Web can run independently of applications, and can therefore process, understand, and act upon data. For example, if you try to book a plane ticket online, it could alert you if you would be missing a meeting, and would also place a reminder for you to reschedule when you get back. Currently, the internet cannot do this. It has endless applications, and can run many formats, but these applications do not 'cross over each other', and therefore are all very seperate from each other.

"The Semantic Web agent does not include artificial intelligence – rather, it relies on structured sets of information and inference rules that allow it to “understand” the relationship between different data resources. The computer doesn’t really understand information the way a human can, but it has enough information to make logical connections and decisions."

Although the Semantic Web may not develop for some time, once it has, the things it will be capable of doing are endless. They will be able to understand 'cross references' like a human brain...something the World Wide Web cannot do, and is bound to improve businesses.

Altova (2009) ‘What Is The Semantic Web?’, Altova, http://www.altova.com/semantic_web.html [accessed 27/3/09]

Week 10- 'Tailored Education'

Is there a potential problem being stored up for people if 'education' is tailored to fit into their cultural and personal preferences?

In terms of culture....
I think that only educating a person about their own cultural preferences can be a very dangerous thing. Without teaching others about different cultures and ways of life, we would become a very narrow-minded culture, and in theory, we would be reversing the past 50 years or so of 'multi-cultural' work that we are trying to bring into our society- teaching foreign languages, discouraging racism etc. Without teaching people about these different cultures, we would be regressing to a racist, narrow-minded time that we should (and have!) left behind us!
Especially with today's digital advances, we are more and more able to talk to people from other countries, and learn things from them. I can't see that this is anything but a positive thing! He are broadening our horizons and have the opportunity to learn about all the different cultures of the world. As professor Puncky Heppner suggests “We are all living in cultures with different norms. Culture affects human behavior. The more we learn about other cultures, the better teachers, mentors, scholars and therapists we can be. Ultimately, understanding different cultures makes us better people.” (Jackson n/a)

In terms of person preference....
I can understand slightly more why there could be advantages. For example, those children who are in need of extra help (dyslexia etc). Surely that counts as a personal preference? In which case by all means, they should be receiving a different education to that of other children...not in terms of what they learn, but in terms of how they learn it. I think that is the most important point here. All children should learn the same, the only thing that should be altered to help them, is the way in which different children learn it!
This has been recognised at some schools: 'The Comenian Programme has been developed to support our academically most able and creatively-talented pupils. We help individuals realise their full potential by nurturing their aspirations and guiding motivation.' (fulneckschool.co.uk), and with help like this being offered, these sorts of 'tailored needs' I think can be beneficial!


Sources:

Jackson, K (na), ‘Understanding other cultures has broad benefits’, University of Missouri, http://education.missouri.edu/news/articles/2008-FA/pr_nb_2008_08_28_heppner_apa_award.php [accessed 25/3/09]

(na) (2009) 'Tailored education', Fulneck School, http://www.fulneckschool.co.uk/tailored-education/ [accessed 25/3/09]

Week 10- Digital Divide In Society

What difference to all this might the 'digital divide' make? a) To socioeconomically related access issues within a society? b) To global access issues across countries and regions?
In terms of socioeconomic, the digital divide is likely to have a negative impact. Prensky outlines the ways in which Digital Immigrants are already struggling to understand the new 'Digital Era', and many of the journals that I analysed in Week 8/9 were concerning the impact that the digital era is having on businesses and companies, particularly those run by 'Digital Immigrants' who don't really understand how the Digital world works.
There seems to be no sign of this Digital Era slowing down- for example, the government etc are preparing people for 'the switch' over to digital TV by 2012... And are having to offer help to the older generations, the 'Immigrants' who do not understand how digital works.
Research from various countries indicates that e-mailing and Web searching are the two most important activities that people carry out on the Internet. The Internet is used for communication, information seeking, civic organizing, and accessing online services such as online banking, job searching, and interacting with public authorities (Wenghong and Wellman 2003). Therefore, with the internet being such an important factor in many people's lives, though who do not use it are clearly being seen as at a disadvantage, which therefore increases the divide


Globally speaking, the divide is just as huge: 'Rather than shrinking with expanding Internet use, the global digital divide between developed countries and developing nations continues to be huge. Denizens of economically developed countries sometimes forget what a small percentage of the world’s population is online. After all, the majority of their country-mates are on the Internet, as are the economically advanced segments of developing countries.' (Wenghong and Wellman 2003). With the UK being such a developed country, I think it is often easy to forget how many people do not have access to the internet, or any digital technology for that matter. Even those countries that aren't necessarily 'third world countries' may not have as much technological experience as the Natives of the UK.
With so many people not able to access the internet globally, it's bound to cause problems. Almost like the 'Immigrant teacher vs Native student' divide, if people are at different abilities/levels in terms of their knowledge of technology, some people are bound to be left out, or struggle with the increase of such technologies. For the time being, we can;t really apply the 'digital divide' globally, as there are too many people that simply are unaware of anything 'digital'.

Wellman,B. And Wenhong, C. (2003) ‘Charting and Bridging Digital Divides’, amd.com, http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/DownloadableAssets/FINAL_REPORT_CHARTING_DIGI_DIVIDES.pdf [accessed 25/3/09]