Starting a revolution

By Cynthia Villanti

People are hotly debating the definition and scope of what is commonly referred to as Web 2.0. Big media love the phenomenon. Time magazine put a mirror on its end-of-the-year cover and declared “you” to be its 2006 Person of the Year. Others, most notably Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, dismiss the term “Web 2.0” as marketing hype; the new generation of tools and technologies it embodies is something he envisioned  from the beginning. He wanted the Web to be “a collaborative medium, a place where we can all meet and read and write.”

In the past 10 years, the Web has witnessed a significant shift in its structure and use. Web 2.0 tools and technologies include blogs and wikis; social networking, social bookmarking and folksonomies; podcasts and RSS feeds. Explore any of these Web-based tools and you begin to notice a pattern of characteristics that seem closely aligned with the AFT’s philosophy of unionism.

The evolution to Web 2.0 is characterized by interactive participation and openness. Rather than individuals passively browsing, surfing and consuming content created by others, Web 2.0 is built upon user-generated content and conversation. The ease of use has significantly increased the number of people who can contribute to the conversation.

Web 2.0 more fully operates on a model of collaboration, networking and shared ownership of content. The least effective wikis and blogs are those featuring content by one person—the electronic version of navel-gazing. The best are those that feature an extensive network of interconnected links and are structured so that peers vote on which contributions are most valued and which should be published—the electronic version of peer review.

So if Web 2.0 represents a more democratic approach to the Web—one that gives everyone an equal voice in defining what’s right, what’s important and what should happen in the future—then don’t we, as unionists, want to participate in shaping this? Many of us have thought about how these tools might shape our teaching and learning, but few have asked how we might integrate them into the daily work of our unions.

I think we should. Some of our community college locals in the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) have started harnessing the power of Web 2.0.

■  Last year, the Mohawk Valley Community College Professional Association (www.mvccpa.org) introduced podcasts during contract negotiations, and now plans to use podcasting to facilitate conversations with other unionists, such as in the Central New York Labor Council.

■  Union activists in the Nassau Community College Faculty Association are using a blog to organize on the issue of domestic partnership rights (https://dprightsatnassau.wordpress.com). The blog allows activists to collect and distribute information, work collaboratively, remain transparent in their operation, and be as inclusive as possible—even students and administrators are helping to support the cause.

■  As chair of the NYSUT Community College Distance Education Committee, I work with union activists at community colleges across the SUNY system. We use a variety of Web 2.0 tools to facilitate our collaborations on distance education (DE) issues: a wiki to share advice and information about developing and teaching DE courses; a blog to discuss issues; and an RSS feed to keep up to date on higher ed and technology issues. My Web site (cynthiasite.net) includes a “DE provisions chart” for an at-a-glance overview of DE contract provisions our state locals have achieved.

With its emphasis on individual “chunks” of microcontent in a rich, broad context of networked collaboration, Web 2.0 holds great promise for higher education unionists. It’s not only the “language” used by our students and younger faculty members, it’s also the medium that keeps us one step ahead of our adversaries.