"Everybody aggress with the concept of Web 2.0 and collaborative communities but it has a long way to go before it's part of the school system, in the U.S. and around the world," said Andres, president and CEO of , a non-profit organization that tries to bridge the gap between schools and Web 2.0 tools.

A big obstacle are school IT departments that, as knee-jerk reactions, block access to online learning and academic collaboration services and sites, for fear that students will get in trouble and create a liability for the institution, she said. Instead, IT departments should work with the curriculum teams and find appropriate, safe Web sites and online tools that are out there.

A previous Web 2.0 Summit attendee, Andres is skipping the conference this year but will follow it via webcasts, Twitter feeds and other social media outlets, to share and discuss ideas on the intersection of Web 2.0 and education.

"We should be focusing on infusing this [Web 2.0 technology] into the school systems in a systematic way so young people can start to understand how to collaborate on a distributed environment," Andres said.

We'll see whether at the end of the three-day confab a critical mass of attendees will walk away convinced that as Web 2.0 movers and shakers they now have a higher societal responsibility than before.