As our education system moves towards an Education 3.0 paradigm, where student-generated content takes a large step forward, I see collective intelligence and current educational silo structures moving strongly in the direction of free access to subject content. To do this, political stake holders will have to give up their hold and control of exactly what it is that our children learn.
From an educational design point of view, these changes have begun.
In the past year or two I had heard quite a bit about teachers and classrooms that were using wikis. For me, at the time I saw “using a wiki” as being analogous to creating wikipedia-like entries. I wasn’t sure as to this was applicable to to all the scenarios I was hearing about. Then a few months ago I took over some Physics classes where the previous teacher was using a wikispaces.
This week in ETEC 565 our class did an activity where we were to collaborate on a wiki entry. The topic was geared in using social media for learning and collaborating, with an eye towards identifying key challenges and strategies when dealing with social media.
This was the first time that I have ever participated in using a Wiki, so the whole setting and editing environment was a bit strange. Furthermore, it became clear that the unwritten rules of how a person navigates and collaborates within a Wiki were also very foreign to me.
