Wiki-based "soul formation" – students self-imposing their educations


Plato could certainly appreciate the benefits of dialogical inquiry–Socratic method, etc. It put Socrates‘ stooges–stand ins (i’m like old Agathon myself) for the rest of humanity–into the dialog. It universalized (or the 4 c equivalent of “globalized”) education. Thus soul-formation was made accessible to all who could read. What an ethical thing to do for a republic!

Although it’s only taken a small sampling, survey monkey (another fine 2.0 tool) has improved the “soul-forming” experience my current and future students will have at our class site.

As a teacher, I am likely to grow insensitive to student concerns. But wiki-fying the curriculum does not allow me to–it brings student gadflies directly into the teacher’s office. I got three excellent corrective notions through student feedback/comments:

1. Posting ALL the homework on the wiki for the day. Maybe some interesting facts- to keep it updated.

Yes. And make students–not I–responsible!

2. Send reminders to people about deadlines because most people don’t look at the calendar

Of course–fatuous to believe otherwise. And even if they do look at the calendar, as of now it may not be accurate…
And then this, which rather surprised me, but on a moment’s reflection made total sense:

3. I really think that students should not add their work onto the wiki for everyone else to see. I would feel more confident if I knew that we did not have to post things on a website for our classmates.

D’uh! Wiki-land right now has no “pre-write” draft procedure worked in. We’ll get on this now.

So you see, Not only is wiki-fication increasing education, it is enabling ethical behavior within the community, perhaps the most important education for young people of all!

image source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Plato-raphael.jpg

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