The Wikiness

In that vein, I want to share  an attack article worth your attention. It’s by Mike Elgan at Computerworld.com and it draws connections between 2.0 ubiquitous tools and their educational potentials that I wish every school administrator could consider. 

Among Mike’s wacky ideas? That we should use, not block the applications kids use anyway (red emphases mine): 

Facebook. Learning is, or should be, social and collaborative. Students are already on Facebook. Why not let them experience the power of Facebook for working toward a goal or cause, or learning in a collaborative way.

Wikipedia. Teachers assign group writing assignments all the time. Typically, either one or two students end up doing all the work, or the work is shared equally and the lazy students damage the grades of the hard-working ones. Either way, the teacher never knows who did what, and students walk away from the experience hating collaboration.

The best way mankind has ever devised for collaborative writing is the Wiki, as demonstrated by the Wikipedia.

Every teacher who assigns collaborative writing assignments should either use Wiki services online, or assign students to write or update an actual public Wikipedia entry.

Not only does the Wiki approach engage the human mind better, it also leaves a complete record of who contributed what to the project. It persists beyond the assignment, remaining available for all to see (rather than vanishing forever after being turned in). The excellent students can be excellent, the slackers can slack, and the teachers can grade each individual according to his or her actual contributions. Best of all, students learn how collaboration will really work once they get into the real world.

Crazy talk, I know, but it’s not an educator talking.  It’s  a computer wonk. Maybe our supervisors will start listening sooner than later?