Saturday, July 18, 2009

Using Wiki in Education

Hi to you all
I have my Wiki up and running now, and found it a very enjoyable experience. I have added some photos of my recent holiday to Sydney if anyone is interested in having a look.

Wiki and education
The Wiki is gaining traction in education, as an ideal tool for the increasing amount of collaborative work done by both students and teachers. Students might use a wiki to collaborate on a group report, compile data or share the results of their research, while faculty might use the wiki to collaboratively author the structure and curriculum of a course, and the wiki can then serve as part of each person's course web site (excerpt from my contribution to a Business 2.0 article --Stewart.mader 11:35, 14 Dec 2005 (PST).

I believe its real power lies in the fact that groups can collaboratively work on the content of the site using nothing but a standard web browser. Wikis are very easy to edit as well, the second powerful element of a wiki is its ability to keep track of the history of a document as it is revised. Since users come to one place to edit, the need to keep track of Word files and compile edits is eliminated. Each time a person makes changes to a wiki page, that revision of the content becomes the current version, and an older version is stored. Versions of the document can be compared side-by-side, and edits can be rolled back if necessary.

Through a wiki, teachers can facilitate and drive authentic, relevant learning and include common goals for collaborative activities.

"The New Writing is online writing: designing web sites, writing weblogs, and creating and managing wikis. New writers are redefining writing online, creating new forms and approaches for new audiences." (English Dept., Bemidji State University).

The Science of Spectroscopy, Using Wiki in Education (2009). Retrieved 19 July 2009 from:
http://www.scienceofspectroscopy.info/edit/index.php?title=Using_wiki_in_education

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Blogs, the virtual teaching and learning environment

Hi to you all

Blogs, the virtual teaching and learning environment.
I think Blogging would help students to think and write more critically. the process of writing postings would focus the students' thinking. In conventional teaching, students often rely on the teacher as the main source of ideas and critique for their work. What makes blogs useful is their interactive nature. Students are getting new perspectives from their peers that they don’t get in the classroom.
Blogging technology in education would be extremely useful for collaboration and knowledge management. Categorising and managing thoughts, whether they are from a teacher’s notes, a student's own ideas or comments from others. Encouraging students to review and revise their learning
Blogs as e-learning spaces could be used in classrooms as student communication, learning content delivery, student mentoring, young people connecting with pen pals. They could be used for educational games, or for cultural information about all countries of the world
Student blogs could be used as online learning journals as part of the education process integrating the personal aspect of a traditional learning journal with the immediate publishing capability of the web. There is an endless range of potential applications of blogging technology in education.

Cheers
Deb

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

OMG

Hi
Well I'm in, don't have any idea what I'm doing yet but it much get easier, right?