Terms and Definitions

Researching the terms and definitions made me realize that while I may understand how to navigate around the internet and understanding the tools available to me, I do not have command of the technology jargon. Words such as captcha and Digg were unfamiliar to me while other words such as tweet, avatar and cloud computing were terms I was comfortable both using and defining. Web 2.0 is the phase of the internet that allows for interaction and has definitely changed the way the internet is used. Again, looking at how this will play out in the elementary and middle school environments beyond the typical project using PowerPoint is still being refined. Think about your students needing to learn vocabulary to understand the concepts in math, science, English, language arts and social studies; we are there too, learning the vocabulary of the future.

TERMS	DEFINITIONS
aggregation	a composition technique for building a new object from existing objects that support some or all of the news object’s interfaces
avatar	subject in a virtual world that represents a person
blog	a series of informal articles
cache	a place to store something momentarily where it con be retrieved quickly instead of having to get it from the server
captcha	letters and numbers randomly generated by program that are inputted for “security” of a process on the computer to insure the inputter is human
cloud computing	allows for web-based applications as opposed to purchasing software i.e. Google Docs
Digg	social news site that allows for users to submit and rate input. allows for users to popularize the content and “digg” it.
hashtag	a tag used to categorize posts on Twitter according to topics
HTML	the language of the world wide web - a system of markup codes and symbols inserted into a file that is intended for use on the world wide web. The markup tells the web browser how to display the images and words for the user.
podcast,webcast	a broadcast sent over the world wide web or ipod
tags	a language element descriptor
tweet	a message or post on Twitter- must be 140 characters or less
web 2.0	interactive services that the web now offers such as online banking, photo sharing, webmail
wiki	content management system that allows people to input and edit sites without knowing HTML
source code	human readable instructions that a programmer writes