Learning Technologies: Design & Applications

The Wisdom of the crowd

Discussion:

The Wisdom of the crowd / weblogs

In terms of having student work take place in public or private spaces,

Some thoughts about weblogs:

• Weblogs may be online journals (text, images, and hyperlinks)
• Dynamic environment that facilitates reflection.
• Strategy to get students motivated; to participate actively in the writing construction and encourage critical thinking
• Allows active learning, get feedback
• Access to a variety of resources and blogging & providing a form of online asynchronous discussion.
• Possibility of customizing blogs by adding images, graphics, videos, pictures and many other features
• Enables connecting and integrating technology to a traditional field of study to form a new method to understand the subject

Issues of ownership or responsibility in weblogs; potential benefits or drawbacks to having people who are not within the classroom space participating or engaging with student material? 

• Self-publishing encourages ownership and responsibility on the part of students, who may be more thoughtful (in content and structure) if they know they are writing for a real audience.
• In the video made my Karl Fisch, students seem to be mainly positive about their experience.
  • They seem to be at ease in the blogsphere.
  • Interconnectivity is certainly an element of their lives not only found on blogs, but also on many other devices.
  • I think that when we talk of strangers (or collaborators) having access to their work, we must really decide which audience we are referring to:
    • elementary school children
    • high school students
    • university students
    • … should be treated differently.

References:

Blogs and Wikis: Environments for On-line Collaboration

http://cursa.ihmc.us/rid=1131480053328_1801720929_4296/godwin.pdf