The change of paradigm imposed by the Bologna process, in which the student will be responsible for their learning, and a new generation of students with higher technological skills, represent a huge challenge for the institutions of higher education. The use in teaching of new Web Social concepts, supported by applications usually called Web 2.0, with which these new students feel at ease, can bring benefits in terms of motivation, frequency and quality of involvement in academic activities. An e-learning platform with web-based applications as a complement can contribute significantly to the students of higher education to obtain different skills in areas usually deficit.

In this paper is presented an integrated platform with a content management system and web-based applications, known as Web 2.0.

It is proposed the use of such applications to complement the platforms of the distance education. These platforms would be used to manage formal aspects of the course related to teaching and learning, such as providing content and the means and results of the evaluation, while the social web applications, being on the outside structures IES and therefore outside its control, serve to explore the motivational aspects in the relationship with the students. In order to optimize its use, the platform of the distance education work together with other content management systems such as digital repositories.

Based on their experience and success in the use of web tools, particularly by people in the age range of students in higher education, there is a belief that the use of this integrated platform, involving different solutions, will enable improvements in the following areas:

• Increased interaction between teachers and students, without the constraints sometimes present in the presence relationship;
• Increased monitoring and participation in the activities of the course, with the feeling that the teacher is present and available;
• The creation of habits of research, study, writing and discussion of subjects;
• Easier development of interdisciplinary synergies.

That is, the platform of distance education supplemented with tools and web services, such as blogs, wikis and other social software, function as communities in which participants share experiences and develop together in learning, providing ad-hoc communities of learning (O'Hear, 2006). Basically, this is the evolution of e-learning to a next stage, which could be called e-learning 2.0 (Downes, 2005).

Keywords: e-learning; web 2.0; social web; collaborative work; teaching and learning methodologies.