colecamplese's blog

So of course I post about the blogs@pgsit project and Penn State gets hit with a massive power surge -- that knocks out the xServe they are sitting on, corrupts the database, and makes the service not work for two days ... well, thanks to the work of Chris Millet (who isn't a server admin at all) we are back and things are flowing again. I would expect some podcasts today or tomorrow ... the posts that are there are very good. Take a look. Thanks!

I've been writing about the Blogs@PGSIT project at my other sites (here & here) for a couple of weeks now ... the PGSIT, or PA Governor's School for Information Technology, is a program that I have administered here at PSU for the last six years ... it is a five week program on our campus that brings the state's best and brightest here to learn about technology. We do all sorts of things with the scholars, but this year we decided to give them a read/write space to use for a little bit of everything -- modeled after our beta, blogs@si project. They are posting thoughts, assignments, podcasts, vodcasts to the site. We built the space on Drupal and it has been an amazing success (so far). We are excited by what we've seen and really think that spaces like this are better at supporting the classroom than a standard LMS. At any rate, I thought this community would like to take a look at what is going on ... just remember, the only rules we gave them was to be responsible and take ownership of the space. So far, so good!

Another great session ... this time about how WIKIs can impact teaching and learning. "Adventures in WikiLand," by Brian Lamb from U of British Columbia ... More on that in a minute ... one of the great things about the presentation is that it is more of a demo than a death by PowerPoint. He started at his own wiki and I went back to the root directory and found that UBC has a whole blogs initiatives going on and then on to University of Minnesota where they have it going as well ... lots of others too.

Back to the wiki ... he showed just how easy it is to create a new page ... and it is very easy. I think we have another new tool to look at for course design, eBook design, and just general coursework. He gave a great example of how the wiki can be used for things like planning ... he used the example of planning a camping trip and talked about how much easier (and less email intensive) the wiki is to use for this type of a thing ... he showed how it was used for planning and delivering a conference ... can you think of examples we should be focusing on for teaching & learning purposes? Another great page from the wiki space. Another cool reference ... shows how people write in wikis. How about this quote from WhyWiki:
"So I wiki. Why? Because it doesn't matter. Sure, people might read it, but it is electronic, unreliable, ethereal. It is something I don't entirely understand. But what I like, what I really enjoy about wiki writing, is that paper never gets the chance to solidify against me."A funny side note ... the guy sitting next to me is geeking out in terminal trying to hack the guy's wiki as he is talking. He actually went in and changed some of his quotes and links to make his point ... whatever.

Now he is getting to it -- wiki in instruction ... take a look at some examples. Of course, the audience are all saying, "but aren't you worried of cheating and plagiarism?" ... the speaker is looking at them like we look at people when they say that ... "so, its your course, deal with it." Another good idea is that in group work, with these tools we don't have to worry about the one kid who understands Dreamweaver making the whole website and driving all the technology ... the tools get out of the way and let all members of the team contribute. That makes me happy ... I know that in my classes, there are a handfull of kids who take over all the technology. We'll be exploring this stuff more. Some entries on people who walk the talk.

Finally ... why not discussion boards vs. wikis ... the short answer, "there are no boxes" to constrain the flow. Discussion Boards are good for certain things, but IMHO are way over used in education. Blogs, wikis, and other personal and collaborative publishing systems are poised to take this whole .edu space by storm. We really ought to get out in front ... and fast. Great session!