Week 2 has been an interesting week and it is forcing me out of my comfort zones into the world of wikis, tweeting, and blogging. Being a product of a public school educational system of the 70's and 80's, my educational experiences primarily consisted of a teacher writing on a blackboard (yes, kids there were no white marker boards or PowerPoint presentations for us) and lecturing us while we took notes. Sure, there was the occasional project here and there but generally the educational experience did not change much day to day. I admit that this type of education was effective for most, but it could become boring and lead to a less than enthusiastic classroom audience.
Technology is changing the classrooms of today. Tech savvy instructors are learning how to make courses interactive and more fun for the students. A teacher's toolbox to help learning, has grown substantially and enables an educator to customize the lessons to not only appeal to the classroom's varied learning styles; but also allows the lecturer to create a lesson that is based on their teaching strengths.
This week's assignments focused primarily on the use and creation of Wikis. Most people are familiar with wikis because of the very popular and successful site Wikipedia. There are varying schools of thought on the accuracy of information on Wikipedia; however, because of its ability to be edited quickly and by many different people it can be a very useful source to use for gaining beginning information and developing a direction on a particular topic. Wiki's are also seen as a very powerful learning and teaching tool today.
One of our assignments for this week was to begin a creation of a wiki for a potential lesson for our class. We will be using a free wiki hosting site at www.pbworks.com to create our particular learning wiki. As I begin to create my wiki I can see how this collaboration tool could be an exciting gizmo for students to explore and use. As an adult working within the corporate world, I cannot tell you how many times a collaboration project has been a nightmare to the participants involved. Generally, the project required many meetings that could be help on or off site and required that all members of the committee attend. When dealing with people with busy professional and personal demands it can become almost impossible for all the participants to make and stay involved in the meetings. After learning more and beginning work on my wiki, I can see how this could help keep the project on track, on time, and on point.
In a corporate setting this could practically eliminate the dreaded meeting, because the participants can post their finding directly to the wiki for the others to review and comment on. Also, speaking for myself, I tend to get moments of brilliance and clarity at the oddest times. By using a wiki, I can post the thought and any supporting evidence almost the moment I think of it. No more scraps of paper or small tape recorder to hold on to and present at the meeting. Also, feedback and brainstorming can begin at any given moment and time. Let's not even get into the time and money it can save when the participants are not located close to each other.
As far as an educational setting, a wiki can be created as a homework assignment and would use up very little classroom time. This would allow for the teacher to cover more topics and also help the student hone their research and writing skills.
The use of wikis is definitely something I am interested in learning more of and using them in a learning setting.
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