I enjoyed this guest speaker, she was more engaging and open than the others, to me at least. I can't recall everything that she talked about, but a few points that I do remember...
Free puppy vs. free beer: Open source (the free puppy) does require a lot of work in order to maintain it, you know "keep it alive." I understand this concept more because of iLearn website and its staff here at state. I can imagine (from the outside looking in) how much work does go into creating a sustainable, learning environment. I appreciate the work that has been put into it, because it is accessible when I need it and it benefits my learning. Hoewever, I don't get the full impact of iLearn because it is my "free beer" instead of being my "free puppy." I can pop in when and wherever I need to, "drink my fill" and then leave, knowing (or at least hoping) that it will always be there when I get back.
I'm guessing that is why the future Web .0's are considered to be pretty big, high maintenance puppy dogs. No is prepared to handle that.
Web 3.0 & 4.0: I was very intrigued when Dr. Wagner spoke about what will be considered Web 3.0, mainly because the few examples that she gave are things that are available now. SO I asked "Why isn't the web that we are using now considered 3.0?" I believe that her response was about sustainability, not being able to fully support the web going 3-D. The examples that she gave for Web 4.0 reminded me of the fully interactive, A.I., type house in the Iron Man movie, he was a gazillionaire whiz kid who could create that kind of technology. Even though it seems cool from the outside, I wonder what would that mean to have everything around us, that affects our lives, be that intelligent. Would that mean that we could get lazier (physically) as humans? What about e-learning in Web 4.0?
Gartner Hype Cycle: Now I have a name for this phenomenon, I've seen it over and over again with all the new "hyped toys" that come out. I wonder if this cycle can only be applied to technology and not the hyped advertising for other types of products?
