UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH IN WEB 2.0

This paper is a culmination of 3 research projects done by 4 undergraduate students in the area of Web 2.0 technology and its application in academia. The motivation behind these projects is the passion of these students to pursue graduate studies. These projects are an analysis of the use of social media in personal and academic life of undergraduate students, categorized by gender. The plan for the studies was set as a three step process. The first step was to understand the internet usage phenomenon by undergraduate students. This foundational study led to the second step of categorizing the web 2.0 awareness and usage by various academic majors grouped into three areas of study: science, technology and liberal arts. The third step involved the incorporation of social media in the curriculum to study the connotations of the usage of the social networking in classrooms under organized and supervised conditions.