Back in 1998, Etienne Wenger wrote a book expounding on a theory of learning based on the concept of what he called "communities of practice". "Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly." (Wenger E., 1998). While the concept itself is nothing new, the context in which it is used today gives it a fresh significance and opens up a brand new world of possibility.

Among the first to identify this theory in the context of the Internet and give it a label was Stephen Downes from the National Research Council of Canada. He stated, "e-learning is evolving with the World Wide Web as a whole and it's changing to a degree significant enough to warrant a new name: E-learning 2.0" (Downes S., 2005). This new emerging model of e-learning was not a result of past novel learning theories but a product of the evolution of the Internet and its users as a whole.

One of the key advocates of this Internet evolution was Tim O'Reilly who is believed to have first coined the term "Web 2.0". His definition for Web 2.0 was "the web as a platform" which signified the fact that the Internet was transitioning from static pages ("the Read Web") -where users were mere recipients of information- to websites that functioned as dynamic platforms whereupon communities of users could interact, create and share their own content ("the Read-Write Web"). In many ways, the breakthrough stemmed from a realization of the Internet's greater potential. "Web 2.0 refers to a change in the way the Internet is used, representing its innovative collaborative nature. The internet has become a platform for user participation and interaction, promoting a more active use and the development of digital communities." (Isaias et al 2007)

Today, the most popular websites on the Internet stand as prime examples of the Web 2.0 model. Amongst these are social networking sites, multimedia-sharing web applications, wikis, blogs and sites that support folksonomies. All these have in common the fact that by themselves they offer nothing except that they are a platform upon which the users themselves can build. O'Reilly had stated that one of the key concepts of Web 2.0 is "Build applications that harness network effects to get better the more people use them". (O’Reilly T., 2006)

However, even before Web 2.0 came to the forefront there was much speculation about how e-learning was to evolve and how digital technology was impacting the way people were learning. In his famous paper, Prensky addresses these changes and takes a closer look at students of the Information Age or "digital natives" as he calls them. He states, "Our students have changed radically. Today’s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach. Today's students have not just changed incrementally from those of the past, nor simply changed their slang, clothes, body adornments, or styles, as has happened between generations previously. A really big discontinuity has taken place. One might even call it a “singularity” – an event which changes things so fundamentally that there is absolutely no going back. This so-called “singularity” is the arrival and rapid dissemination of digital technology in the last decades of the 20th century. Today's students – K through college – represent the first generations to grow up with this new technology. They have spent their entire lives surrounded by and using computers, videogames, digital music players, video cams, cell phones, and all the other toys and tools of the digital age. Today's average college grads have spent less than 5,000 hours of their lives reading, but over 10,000 hours playing video games (not to mention 20,000 hours watching TV). Computer games, email, the Internet, cell phones and instant messaging are integral parts of their lives. It is now clear that as a result of this ubiquitous environment and the sheer volume of their interaction with it, today's students think and process information fundamentally differently from their predecessors. These differences go far further and deeper than most educators suspect or realize. ‘Different kinds of experiences lead to different brain structures, ‘ says Dr. Bruce D. Perry of Baylor College of Medicine." (Prensky, 2001)

The interactive, collaborative and user-centric principles and technologies that made Web 2.0 so successful along with new pedagogical approaches and observations like those of Wenger and Prensky served as the springboard for E-learning 2.0. "E-learning 2.0 has lighted a new torch over processes and roles in acquiring knowledge. An heterogeneous community of teachers and learners can dialectically share and improve their knowledge, lit up by Web 2.0 facilities and massive multimedia employment. This trend has a particularly strong impact on e-learning, finally offering new tools and methodologies to effectively work as in an on line community of practice, articulated and promoted by people [5]. Rather than being composed, organized and packaged in static learning objects, new evolving e-learning contents can be dynamically created, aggregated, classified, syndicated and shared by students" (Ferreti et al, 2008).