A Paradigm Shift in Distance Education: Web 2.0 and Social Software

Abstract

The term of “new technological paradigm” is become an indispensable concept for all educational organizations. Consequently there is a growing necessity to describe what the term technological paradigm is. With the gaining speed of technological changes, a new dimension of educational and training paradigm is being formed. The sources of this paradigm are, flexibility and providing rich learning environments for all students. Therefore student’s roles had changed from passive to highly interactive in the historical development of distance education. In this paper, evolution of Web technologies from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 as a sub-dimension of distance education is being decribed theoretically. Besides, reflections of this evolution for all educational organizations are taken in hand with the perpective of the term of social software.