Updated: 7/7/06; 8:12:51 PM.
Connectivity: Spike Hall's RU Weblog
News, clips, comments on knowledge, knowledge-making, education, weblogging, philosophy, systems and ecology.
        

 Wednesday, June 11, 2003

Summary: My clients are teachers, teacher trainers, consultants. When I have to teach at a distance, I've found that most can find some workable fit within a Blackboard learning environment. I'm using my Radio Userland weblog (accompanied with web published and frequently altered outlines) to supplement.

Yet there's the possibility of, even the need for, more in the computer-mediated teaching/learning relationship. My optimum teaching situation, while involving computer supplementation for the sake of

  • flexibility of learning sequences,
  • feedback loops and
  • ease of documentation,
  • to name three,
    must still involve a face-to-face component so that I may afford myself the chance to sense or query alternate paths that would work better for a client. For this reason I am experimenting with Swiki and Tiki(or TikiWiki) to reach farther - to welcome, celebrate and build upon the "road less traveled". Each of us walks an individual path even while grinding down the crowded, cluttered interstate of homogenized corporate-produced collective life. A constructed/constructivist environment will give me a better chance (a sufficiency of clues) to set up my wares on the quiet path, and there I will show their relevance to and utility in the individual journey.

    Tiki, among others,combines the features of wiki and weblog and more ---.

    Blackboard offers online instructional structure of considerable flexibility as it infiltrates traditional campus instructional systems. Outside of the ivy covered walls, Blackboard must be commended for support of less institutional instruction by:

  • donation of free instructional space for 2 months to anyone willing to put in the design and upload time, and
  • their charging just $300/year for the independent trainer's or consultant's teaching work space
  • .
    That's quite a bit of classroom for the price and for the absence of the usual institutional strings. An adjunct, for example might pad out a schedule nicely with this approach. A relative newcomer, Moodle, appears to be bringing an open source and "no upfront charges" approach to the same venue.

    I've appreciated the series of Wiki-related summary entries from Jim McGee. The most recent is Getting up to speed on wikis, part 3. I commend him to you below as you, too, think about how (or whether) to take the best of your teaching behavior and make it better with these evolving web technologies. No, it's not Socratic dialogue in an Athenian marketplace, nor is it a resounding visionary lecture to tiers of rapt students in a Victorian lecture hall. Nor does it yet allow the person-to-person reading which informs some of the best Buberian, I-thou teaching relationships. Neither, however, is it necessarily a nightmare of wires and monstrous cyborg-ian transformations. (The real nightmare is probably the habit change and being on the lower end of a big learning curve!! But, hey, what kind of modeling of adaptive behavior is that??)

    So listen as Jim speaks. (If you want Jim's learning in the order that he's done follow his links at the bottom of the article.) ------------------------

    There continues to be great dialog on wikis in the mix of knowledge work in organizations. Ross Mayfield, of socialtext, has an excellent summary post on Group Voice that makes a good point to pick up this thread.
    Its not a choice between one or another. The temporal structure of weblogs and logical structure of wikis are a complement for lasting effects. One of the more powerful patterns in an organization is how an opportunity is published in blog, possibilities are swarmed upon in blog conversation and then driven to consensus and outcome in a wikified document. After the outcome, the knowledge and its social context remains.

    Both tools together create powerful effects for publishing, communication and collaboration.

    Denham Gray calls attention to the key differentiating aspects of wikis in a comment he posted. His key distinctions:

    • The power to contribute BOTH to content and structure - other genres require you post within a predetermined structure (blogs, bulletin boards, guestbooks, IM....)
    • True equality - blogs have an implicit posting hierarchy - some get main board status, the rest are relegated to buried comments (if allowed)
    • Collaborative writing at the most fundamental (text) level - this is very different from annotation, editorial commentary or letters to the editor!
    • Open edit - you can change anything at anytime - no attributation, notime/ date stamps in wiki- just pure flow

    Stuart Henshall recommends a look at NexistWiki and also offers several interesting reports on the use of wikis in working sessions (see The One Hour Wiki). Doug Holton at Ed Tech Dev offers a pointer to Tiki (and other CMS tools) for Teaching. One curious thing I've noticed is that wikis appear to be very popular in the Smalltalk/Squeak community. Here's one directory, for example, of Smalltalk Wiki Webs.

    Next steps for me will be to begin frequenting a few wikis, installing a wiki somewhere I can play with, and looking for appropriate group opportunities where I can apply wikis. As if I had spare time I was desparate to fill :).

    (part 1 and part 2 of my original posts on wikis)

    [McGee's Musings]


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    Spike Hall is an Emeritus Professor of Education and Special Education at Drake University. He teaches most of his classes online. He writes in Des Moines, Iowa.


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