e-learning experiences

Dave Fontaine’s article “Welcome to the Age of the Wikitext!” published in the may/june 2008 issue of Multimedia & Internet@Schools magazine explores the idea of how text books have become outdated in technologically savvy classrooms. He believes that wikispaces and other collaborative software programs may be used effectively as a tool for teachers and students to record, sort, compile and store information on a variety of topics. He argues that with guidance from teachers, students may take a more constructionist, student based approach to their own learning by using wikitexts to create spaces which combine a variety of multimedia from podcasts to text, to animations and vodcasats. Ashley has also written an interesting post on text books in relation to saving the environment, here.

I agree with his view since these types of learning environments, when implemented appropriately, can cater to a wider range of ability levels as well as multiple intelligences. With appropriate guidance and input from teachers, wikitexts may be used very effectively in classrooms since they provide opportunities for students to contribute their collective intelligence and ideas to a document that may be constantly changed, edited and added to.

Image: flickrcc