Web 2.0 and Learning: When the Use of an Informal Context can Bring Help in a Formal Context

The Web 2.0 follows the Web 1.0 in enhancing a participatory culture (Jenkins, 2006) through web applications available online. This research aims to analyze the informal learning contexts proposed by the web 2.0 like mutual websites explicitly linked to academic disciplines and curricula. To this purpose, data were collected from a natural situation: a French forum of mutual assistance available on the web. It was analyzed using conversational analysis literature (Marcoccia, 2004) and cognitive science (Pelissier, & Mailles-Viard Metz, 2010) in order to investigate how help (Puustinen and Rouet, 2009) is processed and how mutual assistance is constructed in an informal context linked to a institutional context.