The cool possibilities about the more than 200 real-time web 2.0 tools under development (Like Google Wave) is that sync and async are being melded together along with multi-dimensional communication tools such as voice, text, image, video, etc.
When semantic web becomes the standard (searchable text becomes recognizable object) then tagging and bookmarking values will be reduced and personal and group collections will become more useful.
Such collections will not simply consist of some items "saved" to another location, but more likely will consist of "searched" items and "pointed to" results. http://popurls.com is demonstrating the real-time value of aggregating crowd sourced and theme specific topics. Studying such real-time results can be a great source of discussion for critical thinking development.
The most important quality for Ed Tech leaders is to understand trends and adapt their craft to emerging innovations. Higher education may do students a disservice by focusing too much on tool techniques and too little on trend research. (posted 12/1/09)
