« Learning Ecologies : Cafe Physics | Main | Blog and Tell : Safari versus FireFox »
September 17, 2004
Learning Ecologies : Blogs, Swarms, Wikis, and Games
Educause Review, September / October 2004, focuses on "New Tools for Back-to-School" Blogs, Swarms, Wikis, and Games."
- Educational Blogging: Stephen Downes, observes "Despite obvious appearances, blogging isn't really about writing at all; that's just the end poing of the process, the outcome that occurs more or less naturally if everything else has been done right. Blogging is about, first, reading. Mut more important, it is about reading what is of interest to you, your culture, you community, your ideas. And it is about engaging with the contend and with the authors of what you have read - reflecting, criticizing, questioning, reacting. If a student has nothing to blog about, it is not because he or she has nothing to write about or has a boring life. It is because the student has not yet stretched out to the large world, has not yet learned to meaningfully engage in a community. For blogging in education to be a success, this first bust be embraced and encouraged."
- Going Nomadic: Learning in Higher Education: Bryan Alexander explores the learning infrastucture associated with mobile devices. He uses the term "m-learning" to describe this, though "moblogging" or "keitai" migh help link this article wtih Stephen Downes's.
- Wide Open Spaces : Wikis Ready or Not: Brian Lamb begins by recalling Tim Berners-Lee's lament: "I wanted the Web to be what I call an interactive space where everybody can edit. And I started saying 'interactive,' and then I read in the media that the Web was great because it was "interactive," meaning you could click. This was not what I meant by interactivity." Wiki's address this issue by allowing anyone to edit any wiki-page. A dangerous idea.
Stephen Downes is a Senior Researcher with the E-Learning Research Group, National Research Council, Canada, Moncton, New Brunswick.
Brian Alexander is codirector o of the Center for Educational Technology at Middlebury College.
Brian Lamb is a project coordinator with the Office of Learning Technology at The University of British Columbia.
Posted by sjc at September 17, 2004 2:55 PM
Comments
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)