This week has gone by wiki wiki. That means "quick" in the Hawaiian language, and according to Ward Cunningham, that Hawaiian word is the origin of the technology term. Of course, this is also the week that my grad class is studying wikis...
Two moments stand out for me in wiki week.
One: The class is in session, all on line and four students agree to work with me on a project I have started, a wiki about how to get a job teaching English in middle school or high school. All of us are rapidly writing and changing the text, altering the look of the wiki, adding in pictures and so on. One new idea jumping up and then being changed. We're talking with each other as we do. Do you like this look? What if we changed the color? Can you find a picture? Meghan can't get her picture loaded; Rob finds a way to post one. It's fast, fun and exciting, working as individuals and as a team -- collaborative writing.
Two: Later in the week and I come back to a page I had made about resume writing. I loved my page with all of its great ideas and my know-it-all confidence. But the page is almost entirely gone! Kim has been working on it for hours, and now, instead of offering certain advice abour resumes, the page raises questions, challenges resume writers to consider decision making. -- Yes, it is a major intellectual advance from my work, but I also liked the good ol' fashioned straight advice I had posted.
Do I regret this whole collaborative thing? Now what... I set about reading and re-reading Kim's work. I look back in the histories at my previous versions. I take some of her stuff and fold it into what I had done -- I make that page a replacement page. I take some of her stuff and create a new page, about "resume decision making," and link that to the first page. Now, where are we? What is Kim going to think? I write an email to the group...
This is work, and there are egos and different visions involved. The project is now not just mine, but how do I let go, evolve, enter into collaborative writing?
Feb 13, 2007
Feb 7, 2007
Web 2.0 and Uneven Development
I am excited to see the way teachers and future teachers are embracing some of the possibilities offered by blogging, RSS, and wikis!
As someone who has often been a "early adopter" of technology I would say that such adoptions have often meant for me a struggle with the institution to get the hardware, equipment, rooms, and software that I needed for the experiments that I wanted to perform. One thing that excites me about Web 2.0 is the way that so much is already "done" for us -- waiting for us out there on the web, such that we don't have to pay for, load, or manage new software. Nor do we need especially powerful computers, because the running of software and the storage of information is basically done remotely. This ought to make these technologies easier for teachers to use (except in so far as the public schools use filters that block access).
I thought that many of the technologies I started using for teaching would much more rapidly become "standard" activities. Twenty five years ago I was using word processors in class to help student do revision. Fifteen years ago I was having my students engage in threaded discusions. Eight years ago my students were all making websites. Five years ago I started teaching all my classes in a wireless, laptop classroom. As I undertook each of these I thought that, OK, soon everyone else is going to be on the same page. But that is not the way it has worked. The technologies involve new learning on the part of teachers and new ways of understanding teaching -- those changes take time. What I have seen instead is, to use the classic and appropriate expression, "uneven development" with some jumping ahead, and others lagging behind, at least in terms of meaningful technology innovation.
There is also lots of "hype" about how technology will save students or radically transform learning... and that I have become skeptical of as well.
As someone who has often been a "early adopter" of technology I would say that such adoptions have often meant for me a struggle with the institution to get the hardware, equipment, rooms, and software that I needed for the experiments that I wanted to perform. One thing that excites me about Web 2.0 is the way that so much is already "done" for us -- waiting for us out there on the web, such that we don't have to pay for, load, or manage new software. Nor do we need especially powerful computers, because the running of software and the storage of information is basically done remotely. This ought to make these technologies easier for teachers to use (except in so far as the public schools use filters that block access).
I thought that many of the technologies I started using for teaching would much more rapidly become "standard" activities. Twenty five years ago I was using word processors in class to help student do revision. Fifteen years ago I was having my students engage in threaded discusions. Eight years ago my students were all making websites. Five years ago I started teaching all my classes in a wireless, laptop classroom. As I undertook each of these I thought that, OK, soon everyone else is going to be on the same page. But that is not the way it has worked. The technologies involve new learning on the part of teachers and new ways of understanding teaching -- those changes take time. What I have seen instead is, to use the classic and appropriate expression, "uneven development" with some jumping ahead, and others lagging behind, at least in terms of meaningful technology innovation.
There is also lots of "hype" about how technology will save students or radically transform learning... and that I have become skeptical of as well.
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