Reflecting on my journey during this course, I realise, like the fish in this cartoon, Web2.0 technologies can seem like a lot of new web 'junk'. This course has helped me realise the potential of exciting new tools, that create opportunities for learning.

Grosseck suggests that students are already digitally fluent, so education must give students the knowledge they will need to in a web2.0 workforce. Grosseck also suggests that educations should 'assume a new attitude' and set ourselves up as innovators in creating opportunities for new pedagogical frameworks. I feel this is what the course has been about.

Back from the vast desert of internet-less land

Having just spent the last two weeks without internet, I realise how engaged I have become in this course and how much I miss the interaction of colleagues, watching pages develop and reading how friends are getting along in the course.

In the article Learning at a Distance: Engaged or Not?, the authors report that distant online learners are often more engaged in the learning process than their oncampus counterparts, except in the area of activies and collaborative engagement.

"Student engagement takes many forms—intellectual challenge, active and collaborative learning, meaningful interactions with faculty, and the perception that the learning environment is supportive of the student's efforts to overcome obstacles to learning"

The authors suggest that online courses should encourage collaborative activity, which I believe this course has tried to do with the Knowledge Garden. In my last unit of the Masters, I find myself more engaged than ever before in the process of learning through interaction.

Google: White bread for the mind

A recent article in the Times Online quoted Tara Brabozon, as saying Google is “white bread for the mind” producing a generation of students who survive on a diet of unreliable information

She states that “To-day’s media is shattering the world into a billion personalised truths, each seemingly equally valid and worthwhile.” I guess this is a good description of collaborative technologies...but is this a bad thing?

Judging by the response to this article, many people disagree with her statements that google is creating a generation of 'cut and paste' students who cannot differenciate between good and bad information. Others suggest that collaborative minds create valid information that is just as reliable as academic research.

Blogger in three new languages...

Blogger is now available in three more languages, including Arabic. I first learned this when opening my account and it had defaulted to Arabic. Luckilly I know enough of the language to change the settings back to English.

Having Blogger in Arabic shows that Google and others realise that it is not necessary to disenfrancise communities who do not speak in English. The web is 'big business' in the Arab world, and a whole subset of Web 2.0 technologies are developing in alternative languages.

Not sure all the glitches are ironed out, but تهاني to Blogger!

Lessons learned from wiki lessons...

Using the Knowledge Garden as a good and bad learning experience has made me think of ways to use wikis in my classroom.

One idea I used recently was to get Group A students to research a topic and create a wiki page. Group B students then read the page and asked some questions and made comments on the page.

Rather than the facilitator generating the questions and calling for comments, the collaborators did.

Students often have to do research of their own to come up with the questions and comments. Group B (C and D) students were also busy creating pages in the same wiki and going through the same process.

I find it takes a lot more scaffolding at first, and probably has different learning outcomes to my own experience, but the students are motivated by the technology. Its a great way to teach collaboration, critical thinking skills, reading and writing for understanding, etc...

Its not over until its over...

I have just realised that Assignment One is not over. Will it ever be over? Is the nature of the beast something that is going to keep going forever? I thought about submitting yesterday, but I have the urge to tinker more.

It seems all about validating movement within the pages, by contributors and myself. I need to keep moving...

One down, two to go!

I have just finished Assignment One for FET8611 and upon reflection, it was a great learning experience. I really want to submit the assignment and have a feeling of completion, but with a this one, I dont know if it was really complete.

I have reread the instructions for Assignment Two, and I was a little horrified to learn that we are still emersed in the Knowledge Garden. As part librarian/part teacher/part resercher, my tools of research are academic databases and research journals. I know for this assignment I am going to have to search through the garden to use the material there.

Its not that I dont believe the information is not extremely valuable there, the problem is the navigation and the search tools. Searching tools, indexing facilities and metadata are so much part of my 'tools of the trade' that not having them makes everything seem that much harder and time consuming. Wikis are great learning tools, but as they expand, they need some indexing so the information can be accessed easily.

Watching the wiki grow...

Watching the development of my "Book Club" wiki, is like watching a child grow. I had expectations of what it would look like and how people would interact with it, but I have learned that the collaborators use it in many different ways.

I think that the shared ownership of the wiki has allowed it to develop in different directions. Different groups of learners have found their niche pages. Some pages have lots of activity, and these seem to be the pages that encourage the most interaction, like the "Favorite First Line". Its quick and easy to use and changes regularly.

I am interested in how the 'write a story' page develops, and notice that students are peer mentoring each other, by correcting mistakes and changing grammar! Fantastic learning!

In search of the perfect wiki...

As my wiki page develops, I am searching to find what makes a good wiki. It seems that the assessment criteria for this course is that a good wiki is gets as many contributers as possible. This drive for popularity reminds me of 'virtual friends' on FaceBook, and the need by some to collect as many as possible.

Should a good wiki be based on the number of people you can solicit to visit and comment on your page? Are students in this course driven by numbers rather than content?

To find the answers to what makes a good wiki, So naturally I look to the most famous of them all, wikipedia. This blog article sugggests that "It’s just like my high school English teacher said — the secret to writing well is to “rewrite, rewrite, rewrite" It suggests that collaboration helps to underpin the value of wikipedia, and that there is a correlation between article quality and number of edits.

So collaboration is key. The trick is to find collaborators who are truely interested to build knowledge on the topic, not just to accumulate the highest number of 'friends'.

Building wikis...

The process of exploring a wiki for my educational application has shown me that there are a number of different paths to develop a collaborative space, and also different online companies offering me similar prepackaged ways to have a wiki up and running quickly. The easiest method I found was to use a pre-packaged wetpaint site, using one of the many templates provided. The advantage of template design is that everything is pre-planned, easy, quick and I don't need to bother with learning special code. This works well with an uncomplicated shallow design with a limited number of pages. However the wetpaint wiki template doesn't let me modify code to alter the design or automatically update links.

As part of Wetpaint's business model, it takes me to other 'add on' tools by its affiliated companies. For example, if I want to add a survey I click to vizu.com, which integrates a survey tool on my wiki.

One nice touch to Wetpaint wiki is that users have contributed 'splatters' which are matching graphics (borders, bullets and spacers) which can easily be incorporated into the wiki to give it a much more user friendly appearance.

Wiki by design...

Example of good design

Visiting wikis during this course I am reminded that good design should apply whether it be a web or a wiki. The Emerging Technologies Knowledge Garden page is very uninviting - too much text, little organisation and too much scrolling!

Cernohous (2007) observes that the vastness of the web conceals information. Relevant information is sometimes hard to locate on the web. Wikis can bring solutions for centralizing , organizing and disseminating information relevant to users. This is why its even more important that wikis be inviting spaces, well organised and use space, navigation and good web design practices.

Cernohous, Steve. Athletic Therapy Today, May2007, Vol. 12 Issue 3, p2-5,

Wiki culture...

As I work my e-book page, I am discovering more about wiki culture. The following is taken from The Open Content wiki

Maintain a Neutral Point of View (NPOV). Present information straight forward using language that would make it difficult to tell who wrote it - neutral.

I have noticed that a lot of comments on pages seem to be editorial in nature (eg. in my opinion, I think that). I have edited others pages this way myself. In future I will try for the NPOV tone, backing up statements with authoritive citations.

Learning languages through social networking

italki.com is a Web 2.0 application that is creating language learning communities around the world. On this site you can find a language partner or group, share language resources and participate in language activities.

This application can reduced the isolation many L2 learners feel and create a sense of community. L2 learners can learn from their peers and build language learning communities. Working with others in this way could help to overcome anxiety and low self confidence that offen hampers second language acquisition in a classroom setting.

"Google Docs and Spreadsheets is like pure collaborative oxygen"...

I have just read Asra's facilitated page about Sharepoint and have started to do some research to contribute some thoughts. Having read and used the functionality of Sharepoint, I am wondering if GoogleDocs is a light weight but 'free' alternative. Could this be a similar experience between WebCT and Moodle?

"There are a great many users who only require the most basic of functionality out of their productivity software but who also end up with something like Microsoft Office if for no other reason than compatibility with the other people they interact with" (Berlind).

Berlind suggests that many people do not need the high-end advanced tools like Sharepoint offered by Microsoft. GoogleDocs and Googlespreadsheets need no local software or specific operating system or system administrators with GoogleDocs and Googlespreadsheets all you to begin collaborating with someone else, all you need is a browser.

Perhaps the commercial and freeware products both have a place depending on the needs of the user and their environment.

Facebook no longer 'is'...

In an article in todays addition of the SMH, it has been reported that the users of Facebook have brought about a gramatical change - Each update started with the member's name and "is," followed by a blank box - until today - Users now supply all their own verb.

This may seem a small thing, but to many English as second language speakers, it comes as a victory against the very English-specific way many social networks operate. Facebook hasn't translated its site into languages other than English, but is planning to do this next year.

Collaboration or plagiarism?

In my quest for all things emerging, I came across Scriptova, a site created by 18 year old Aseem Badshah. Referring to it as a YouTube or Flickr for academic documents, "Scriptovia.com is an online community for students to collaborate and receive feedback on their academic work. This includes essays, notes, lab reports, presentations, and everything else students create to advance their knowledge" (Scriptova.com). Students can upload their work so that others can review, make suggestions or use as part of their own work.

In an interview, Aseem was asked about the line between collaboration and plagiarism. Aseem suggested that school should be like the real world of work, where the goal is to take what is known and improve upon it. Knowledge should be built upon, rather than reinvented. This way knowledge becomes more analytical and real innovation occurs.

One of the keys to this kind of collaboration is to ensure that the foundation knowledge is built upon quality information. Aseem suggests that students should be taught how to research and how to evaluate, then taught how to collaborate for a true learning experience.

I have uploaded one of my old essays and await the results :)

"Web 2.0 is like obscenity"

This weekend I attended a conference - you guessed it - all about Web 2.0 (specifically Library 2.0)! The presenter defined web 2.0 as like obscenity - different to different people, depending on your own interpretations of the world around you.

Web 2.0 technologies are -

• easier to interact with than a normal web page
• seem to know there is a person at the computer
• a service model with a user centered design
• has network effects by default
• has user generated content and trust

This definition fits well with me and helps me understand the concepts behind the technology. I think the last point user generated content and trust is an important one. It is important to have trust in your community and understand the implications of this trust relationship.

Situated learning...

This afternoon I transfered knowledge from my course to the real world. I have used Elluminate as a student, so I decided to use it for a meeting of peers around the country. A challenge for meeting in my context is that I work closely with colleagues in 17 different campuses, scattered throughout the desert, often separated by traffic snarled roads. Generally we don't meet, corresponding through email.

The problem with email is that it is easy for silent non-participation amongst some members of the group. It is easy to lose the thread of the conversation, have disconnected conversations or to lose momentum for a task. I believe that Elluminate and other conferencing collaborative software may prompt greater participation in my working party, especially during the start up phase.

Having attended a session as a participant, I learned the basic functionality and was confident I could pass on the basics to the group within a few minutes. Being a participant is easy, being the moderator is hard. I found that the moderators role is very complex, having to ensure equal participation, engagement and encouragement amongst the group. It takes a keen eye, as people text chat, talk and contribute to the white board at once and it is easy to miss vital parts of the discussion. The moderator needs to ask open questions to the group and also individuals directly so that there is less 'mt' (moderator talk) and more 'pt' (participant talk).

Although this was the first time for everyone in the group (6 participants) we found that after initial hesitation, everyone was chatting and using the emoticons and symbols to provide feedback to others.

We have decided to use a wiki or Sharepoint (our institutions common space) to continue to share our ideas in a collaborative way.

I learned that the software is easy, perhaps a little clunky with the microphone a bit like a walkie-talkie. I found its the human-computer-human communication that takes time and attention.

Scratching below the cyber-skin of wiki swingers...

The last couple of days I have been discovering the joys and horrors of posting to wikis - specifically the Knowledge Garden. I learned something of the topics, but more about the mechanics of posting, the nature of the wiki swingers, the discourse and the type of information wikis often contain.

Lessons learned:

I notice that the discourse for wiki contributions from experienced users is far less formal than my own. I use a very academic formal style, tending to back up statements with references. Perhaps wiki text is more editorial in nature, tending towards opinion rather than fact, informal and first person in structure. I need to develop this wiki-speak, to become part of the culture and community who value their own opinions and wish to contribute them in this style.

The mechanics of the post sometimes overshadows, and takes much longer than researching the content. This may become easier over time. I have found that different facilitated pages ask for comments to be written in different ways (hidden comments, invite, editing main page). At this point, the medium of delivery is far more complicated than the message.

"My fear is not of wiki or Google. My concern is that the confusion between finding information and building knowledge..." (Bradazon, 2007). In this article, Brabazon (2007) suggests that emerging technologies are creating confusion between finding information and possessing the literacy to evaluate and judge information. When I see unreferenced comments, my immediate reaction is 'how do they know this, are they experts, how do I validate this information'. When I think in terms of my students, I see the need for critical evaluation skills development, so that they can determine fact from opinion, as wiki and scholarly communication mesh into one.

Am I mistaking the purpose of a wiki? Should I be looking at it as a free flow of ideas exchange, like a conversation, not worry about authority, authorship or ownership, rather than a repository of scholarly information?

Bradazon, T. (2007). Boomers in thrall to a wiki universe. The Times Higher Education Supplement. Nov. 16, 14.

Directory of Web 2.0 Applications

One of my goals for this course is to get a handle on Web 2.0. I understand that Web 2.0 refers to web-based communities and hosted services such as social-networking sites, wikis, and folksonomies.

But what applications make up 2.0?

The GO2web20 site is a directory of web 2.0 applications and services. There were 1823 logos (sites) on the directory as of Sunday, December 02, 2007.

These include:

- Networking sites http://unltdworld.com/
- Easy site builders http://doodlekit.com/
- Idea sharing http://www.kerika.com/
- Search tools http://www.searchles.com/
- Organizers http://www.myintervals.com/

...And a whole lot more!

By exploring this site, I have learned-by-clicking and am getting a better understanding of what web 2.0 means to me and how I can apply it to my educational context.