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Keith Hamon

Digital Literacies for Writing in Social Media | DMLcentral - 1 views

  • students need to gain experience actually participating in social media. The best way to understand the expectations of a particular medium is to participate in that medium and identify its genre expectations as they emerge.
    • Keith Hamon
       
      This is one reason why QEP encourages a more open, social approach to writing. We want to move beyond "writing for grading" (which, by law, must be kept private) to "writing for learning and communicating."
  • Students need to think of their online data along the dimensions of: * accessibility* searchability* persistence
    • Keith Hamon
       
      Hmm … paper was so easy: everything was in my portable file folder. Now, I can't track where all my writing resides. New skills to be learned.
  • As more and more of our writing makes its way into digital form -- and as the increasing use of biometrics and other forms of behavior monitoring turns our behaviors into volumes of data -- it will become increasingly important for writers to take steps to ensure the integrity of their private data.
    • Keith Hamon
       
      Privacy is always a consideration, but putting your journal under your mattress no longer works. So what does? We'd best learn. And soon.
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    The question we are faced with, then, is this: how do we prepare our students to write effectively in environments that don't yet exist? While I'm sure there is more to add to this list, I suggest that there are three domains of literacy that, if students become aware of them, will prepare them for new digital writing environments. Namely, students should be aware of the speed of digital communications and the types of interactions that speed encourages, the ways in which digital writing environments preserve and provide access to data, and how writing technologies manage the divide between public and private.
Stephanie Cooper

Career Column: Why Social Media Isn't Just For Interns | Toronto Standard - 1 views

  • For a while, it’s been okay to be less than an expert in social media. It’s time to get on board. Regardless of your age, your survival in the workplace depends on your intimate knowledge of social media.
  • The reasons for this are myriads. Social media has profoundly changed a company’s public face. And with game-changing implications for sales, human resources, public relations, marketing and customer service, virtually nobody is left out of the matrix that touches social media.
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    Social media continues to redefine business in every way.  This is further evidence that we need to teach our students and faculty how to create a "professional" online presence. 
asinha123

SMART - Science, Mathematics & Research for Transformation - Part of the National Defen... - 0 views

shared by asinha123 on 20 Jun 12 - Cached
  • Welcome and thank you for your interest in this exciting scholarship opportunity. The Science, Mathematics And Research for Transformation (SMART) Scholarship for Service Program has been established by the Department of Defense (DoD) to support undergraduate and graduate students pursuing degrees in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines.
    • asinha123
       
      Great opportunity for scholarship
Nicolette Elzie

Writing in College - 1. Some crucial differences between high school and college writing - 1 views

  • You get no credit for asserting the existence of something we already know exists.
  • You must shape and focus that discussion or analysis so that it supports a claim that you discovered and formulated and that all of your discussion and explanation develops and supports.
  • In that sense, you might state the point of your paper as "Well, I want to show/prove/claim/argue/demonstrate (any of those words will serve to introduce the point) that "Though Falstaff seems to play the role of Hal's father, he is, in fact, acting more like a younger brother who . . . ."" If you include in your paper what appears after I want to prove that, then that's the point of your paper, its main claim that the rest of your paper supports.
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  • Most of us begin our research with a question, with a puzzle, something that we don't understand but want to, and maybe a vague sense of what an answer might look like. We hope that out of our early research to resolve that puzzle there emerges a solution to the puzzle, an idea that seems promising, but one that only more research can test.
  • A good point or claim typically has several key characteristics: it says something significant about what you have read, something that helps you and your readers understand it better; it says something that is not obvious, something that your reader didn't already know; it is at least mildly contestable, something that no one would agree with just by reading it; it asserts something that you can plausibly support in five pages, not something that would require a book.
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    I thought this was a great article on the differences between collegiate level writing and high school writing. Moreover, it lays a groundwork for writing a paper. If only there was some way to convey these differences to our students in a way that they will understand without feeling discouraged. I think the weakness of the article is that it is very long, if I wanted to pass this on to a student I fear that the sheer length would deter them away from both reading it and/or finishing it. On the other hand, if we could manage to make this simpler or convert it into a series of short workshops for students then I think the content would be extraordinarily beneficial.
Keith Hamon

Stages of PLN adoption - 0 views

  • Try and find that balance between learning and living. Understanding that you can not know it all, and begin to understand that you can rely on your network to learn and store knowledge for you.
    • Keith Hamon
       
      Here is a key justification for Connectivism: we simply cannot contain all the information we need in our one little head. We must rely on our networks to collect, store, and critical think about information for us.
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    I have noticed an emerging trend of what one goes through when adopting a PLN for the first time. I myself continue to look at the stages I am going through in adopting this new way of learning, interacting, and teaching in a collaborative, connected world.
Keith Hamon

The Wild World of Massively Open Online Courses « Unlimited Magazine - 1 views

  • “There’s this notion that technology is networked and social. It does alter the power relationship between the educator and the learner, a learner has more autonomy, they have more control. The expectation that you wait on the teacher to create everything for you and to tell you what to do is false.”
    • Keith Hamon
       
      This is perhaps the practical heart of Connectivism: that the world is networked and that the learner is at the center of their own personal learning network.
  • “At the beginning, we had quite a number of students feeling quite overwhelmed because you would get 200 or 300 posts going into a discussion forum per day and that’s just about impossible to follow,” Siemens says.
    • Keith Hamon
       
      PLNs must have filters and aggregators to help us manage the massive flow of information in MOOCs.
  • Even if students in massively open online courses master the technology and overcome their virtual stage fright, a third problem remains: how to recognize the value of a learning experience that isn’t for credit.
    • Keith Hamon
       
      Validation remains a very sticky issue for online learning and for PLNs. However, I'm not sure the resolution will be to find a method for online validation, redefinition of validation, or a mixture of both.
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  • It’s a question that proponents of online education continue to grapple with. Even if a student in an open course gains from their experience, there is no guarantee that the boss, or a potential employer, will recognize their learning without a certificate or other official, institution-approved record to prove it.
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    With advancing online tools innovative educators are examining new ways to break out of this one-to-many model of education, through a concept called massively open online courses. The idea is to use open-source learning tools to make courses transparent and open to all, harnessing the knowledge of anyone who is interested in a topic.
Keith Hamon

The Creativity Crisis - Newsweek - 0 views

  • The correlation to lifetime creative accomplishment was more than three times stronger for childhood creativity than childhood IQ.
    • Keith Hamon
       
      Creativity is key to success in 21st Century, but are we creating opportunities for creativity in our classrooms?
  • The European Union designated 2009 as the European Year of Creativity and Innovation, holding conferences on the neuroscience of creativity, financing teacher training, and instituting problem-based learning programs—curricula driven by real-world inquiry—for both children and adults. In China there has been widespread education reform to extinguish the drill-and-kill teaching style. Instead, Chinese schools are also adopting a problem-based learning approach.
    • Keith Hamon
       
      Problem-based learning matches QEP's emphasis on moving content-delivery out of the classroom to replace it with classroom activities that apply the content to problem solving and critical thinking.
  • The creative problem-solving program has the highest success in increasing children’s creativity
    • Keith Hamon
       
      Creative problem-solving? Is creativity a part of critical thinking? What's the benefit in separating them?
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    What's shocking is how incredibly well Torrance's creativity index predicted those kids' creative accomplishments as adults. Those who came up with more good ideas on Torrance's tasks grew up to be entrepreneurs, inventors, college presidents, authors, doctors, diplomats, and software developers. Jonathan Plucker of Indiana University recently reanalyzed Torrance's data. The correlation to lifetime creative accomplishment was more than three times stronger for childhood creativity than childhood IQ.
Keith Hamon

How to use Twitter for Social Learning - 0 views

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    This Guide looks at how to use Twitter for social learning - that is to build a community, communicate, collaborate with others, as well as share information and resources.  In addition it looks at how it can be used for to support formal social learning events and programmes.
Stephanie Cooper

100+ Google Tricks That Will Save You Time in School | Online Colleges - 0 views

  • Google Specifically for Education From Google Scholar that returns only results from scholarly literature to learning more about computer science, these Google items will help you at school. Google Scholar. Use this specialized Google search to get results from scholarly literature such as peer-reviewed papers, theses, and academic publishers. Use Google Earth’s Sky feature. Take a look at the night sky straight from your computer when you use this feature. Open your browser with iGoogle. Set up an iGoogle page and make it your homepage to have ready access to news stories, your Google calendar, blogs you follow in Google Reader, and much more. Stay current with Google News. Like an electronic clearinghouse for news, Google News brings headlines from news sources around the world to help you stay current without much effort. Create a Google Custom Search Engine. On your own or in collaboration with other students, put together an awesome project like one of the examples provided that can be used by many. Collect research notes with Google Notebook. Use this simple note-taking tool to collect your research for a paper or project. Make a study group with Google Groups. Google Groups allows you to communicate and collaborate in groups, so take this option to set up a study group that doesn’t have to meet face-to-face. Google Code University. Visit this Google site to have access to Creative Commons-licensed content to help you learn more about computer science. Study the oceans with Google Earth 5. Google Earth 5 provides information on the ocean floor and surface with data from marine experts, including shipwrecks in 3D. Learn what experts have to say. Explore Knol to find out what experts have to say on a wide range of topics. If you are an expert, write your own Knol, too.
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    There's so much Google can do that most of us aren't even aware of! Some of these might come in handy for yourself as well as your students.
Stephanie Cooper

I hate writing but love to blog….why? | The Thinking Stick - 0 views

  • o why is it that I hate to write and love to blog? First, I think a lot of it has to do with the computer and word processing. As I type this in my Firefox extension Performancing every misspelled word is underlined in red for me, giving me instant feedback on what I have misspelled. Does it catch all my mistakes, heck no, but you should see a post before it actually goes live. Secondly, I can type faster then I can write…about 75 words/minute and you can actually read what I’ve written when I’m done. Finally, I don’t see blogging as writing…it’s idea generation, it’s the free flow of ideas between people and it is a conversation. I love to talk (if you have a hard time writing you usually do…coping skill). I would rather stand in front of a group of parents and give a presentation, or have a face to face parent conference than write a letter home.
  • Blogging gives me an audience, just like giving a presentation…I almost feel that way sometimes…like I’m presenting information, my thoughts rather than writing. It could be a podcast, a video, or blogging…it’s about having an audience. I wonder if I would have blogged in school, given the chance? It would have depended, I bet, on how the teacher used it as a tool. Was it a reflective journal to layout your thoughts, or did every period, capital and ‘ie, ei’ combination have to be perfect. If that was the case I’d have hated it. Blogging is different…it’s not writing in the sense we think about it. People ask me why I blog and I truly can’t give them an answer…I just do, because it’s an outlet for me. I’d bet that I’ve blogged more in the past year then I wrote my whole life leading up to it. It’s been that powerful for me as a tool, and I see it in my students as well. In myspace and youtube…this networking, conversation, sharing atmosphere is contagious!
  • I think you hit on the larger issue, though, is that blogging is much less structured (mostly) than a typical piece of writing. Blogging is much more stream-of-consciousness than writing. As I am writing this, it is a direct connection from idea to publication. I think that is the blogging revolution. I would wonder how different your post would have been, or my comment for that matter, had we outlined it before writing it.
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  • Good writing is really about good editing. Too much time in school is spent on conventions–grammar, spelling–and not on helping people find their voice. Blogging is not writing in the sense that much of blogging comes from a very authentic, unedited perspective. We say what we feel. We mean what we say. We just do not always overprocess it. We have chosen our audience by virtue of the topics and themes we choose.
  • Blogging offers realtime, real world feedback. How many people actually comment on misspellings? Who cares if I end a sentence with a preposition? Perhaps monitors in somepeople’s houses have red circles on them. People comment on the usefulness, the humour, the passion, the ideas. Call it what you will, Blogging is writing with an attitude. Yours. And yours alone. Sure someone might flame you, but you can delete their posts. Now I could proof read this. I could let it sit an daim to craft my thoughts better, but I like the rawness of this.
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    I liked this article because it talks about how it is easier for resistant writers to write by blogging.
Stephanie Cooper

Weblogg-ed » Connected Teaching - 2 views

  • I’ve recently been working with a district that over the last two years has given over 300 workshops on various tools, but when I asked them to talk about what significant, real change had come about because of those workshops, there was basically silence in the room. I’ve started saying that the only workshop we should offer our teachers is one titled something like “How to Learn Online,” one that gives teachers some context and some strategy for directing their own learning but places the expectation for DIYPD squarely on their shoulders. That’s what I find really compelling about PLP, that it supports teachers in developing their own learning goals and strategies, yet at the same time gives them a great sense of potential of these online communities as well. Ultimately, this still is about us, about the decisions we make as “solo practitioners.” But we have to have a different frame, a different context for those decisions now, one that helps us understand our roles as truly connected educators as well.
    • Stephanie Cooper
       
      Like the people who commented on this blog, I too would like to know which technologies he covers in his workshops. What strategies does he use to teach them??
    • Stephanie Cooper
       
      I found my answer! It's in his other cross-listed blog: http://plpnetwork.com It's very similar to our QEP staff training goals.
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    I like this one a lot. Could be another workshop for us and/or for our faculty group. Not to overlook the fact, these activities also count as professional development, just like attending a conference, and actually with more personal benefit.
Keith Hamon

Social Learning Academy - 2 views

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    The Social Learning Academy (SLA) is therefore intended for learning professionals who are new to social media and would like to find out more about the different technologies, their application to learning, as well the new mindset and skillset required for their use.
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    This one is a real winner, Keith, thanks! Can't wait to get our new group into Google Reader, Diigo, and pull some of the first group along, too, whoever is up for the ride!
Keith Hamon

AJET 26(3) Drexler (2010) - The networked student model for construction of personal le... - 0 views

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    Principles of networked learning, constructivism, and connectivism inform the design of a test case through which secondary students construct personal learning environments for the purpose of independent inquiry. Emerging web applications and open educational resources are integrated to support a Networked Student Model that promotes inquiry-based learning and digital literacy, empowers the learner, and offers flexibility as new technologies emerge. The Networked Student Model and a test case are described in detail along with implications and considerations for additional research.
zhoujianchuan

TeachPaperless: Why Teachers Should Blog - 10 views

  • Because to blog is to teach yourself what you think.
    • Stephanie Cooper
       
      This is what Keith and Tom have been preaching! LOL  I like  the way this guy discusses the pros of blogging and refers to the students who "don't get it."  
    • pajenkins1
       
      It's interesting that there are no cons about blogging.
    • ypypenn67
       
      Blogging provides the opportunity for a teacher to express his or her ideas, too. (A teacher sometimes requires his or her students to blog, so the teacher should gain experience as well.) As a blogger, I want to restrict my comments; I do not want everyone to have access to my thoughts.
    • zhoujianchuan
       
      Yeah, there are no cons, except what economists would call "opportunity cost." That is, every one of us only has so much (or so little) time. My colleagues and I are doing the annual faculty evaluation this week. I looked at the evaluation formular and could not find how blogging can add points for me and help me get tenure. Everything said in this article is right, and I agree. But everyone knows where his or her priority is, right?
  • Because to face one's ill conclusions, self-congratulations, petty foibles, and impolite rhetoric among peers in the public square of the blogosphere is to begin to learn to grow.
    • pajenkins1
       
      I do understand a need to grow as professionals, but I'd like to keep some 'growth spurts' personal.
    • Keith Hamon
       
      Yes, but no blogger automatically posts everything that comes to mind. One aspect of reflection is to think carefully about what you are writing and the wisdom of sharing it. For instance, I think it's worthwhile to post this.
  • I think both are achieved through the crucial practice of critical thinking and earnest self-analysis. And no where, if sincerely met with daily conviction, can both be better employed than in the practice of blogging.
    • malikravindra007
       
      I agree that self analysis and critical thinking go together, though it may come only after lots of practice and perseverance. I am still not convinced that blogging is the only way, could be one of the ways, not for me. Nevertheless blogging opens any one to a larger group of people which may help in sharing your thoughts, opinions etc..
    • Keith Hamon
       
      Blogging is just one mechanism. There are many tools for reflection.
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  • This is real maturity
Keith Hamon

4 Ways Mobile Tech Is Improving Education - 1 views

  • one component of mobile implementation is lecture podcasts, which allow students to consume much of the information typically delivered in the classroom on their own time and in their own dorm rooms.The idea is to free up teachers during class time for interacting with students and working through problems, a concept known as “flipping the classroom.”
    • Keith Hamon
       
      This is a strong key for Writing. Realized.
  • In a pilot project of the book, students preferred the book over their traditional textbooks (no assessments were taken to see if BioBook resulted in deeper understanding). A final version of the book, which will be piloted at four universities starting in September, will include analytics, multimedia, short quizzes and other options for teachers to interact with students.
    • Keith Hamon
       
      This is a delightful writing opportunity for students: write the textbook for the class. It also transcends the semester term by extending from class to class and term to term.
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    Students around the world are increasingly bringing their own mini-computers (or some connected device) to class. Whether this creates a distraction or a boon to learning is debatable, but these four uses of mobile phones in education - and countless others - could one day help prove the latter.
Stephanie Cooper

Six Trends That Will Change Workplace Learning Forever - 2010 - ASTD - 1 views

  • “Historically, the learning community has stayed away from informal learning and social learning, and that is where most of the learning is taking place,” ASTD CEO Tony Bingham said during an interview promoting his new book, The New Social Learning, with co-author Marcia Conner. “We now have the tools, and the catalysts, to engage [employees] with that kind of learning. I think that is going to help the learning community take it to the next level.”  
  • An ASTD and Institute for Corporate Productivity study made a strong business case for using social media to enhance productivity. Millennials found social media tools more helpful in terms of learning and getting work done than Generation X workers or Baby Boomers. More organizations dabbled in social media during 2010, using shared workspaces, social networks, and wikis to deliver learning and development.   “The next generation of workers coming into organizations will demand the ability to work in ways they’ve already found to enable success,” wrote Jeanne Meister and Karie Willyerd in a July 2010 T+D article. “If the learning function does not step up to the task, some other department in the organization will, and the learning function will become irrelevant.”
  • As Daniel Pink wrote in The New Social Learning foreword, social learning will not replace training and employee development, “but it can accomplish what traditional approaches often cannot … [It] can supplement instruction with collaboration and co-creation, and in doing so, blur the boundary between the instructor and the instructed. … It can bring far-flung employees together into new communities in which they can not only learn from one another, but also fashion new offerings for customers. In short, social media can change the way your company works.”  
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  • The greatest technology growth of 2010 came with mobile devices, and thus, one of the biggest changes in workplace learning came via smartphones. Mobile phones have become an extension of the workplace and have made the world of work a 24/7 reality, but how have they changed learning?  
  • An IBM study, published in the January 2010 issue of T+D, highlighted two main purposes for mobile phone use: in-field performance support and access to current, just-in-time information that is relevant to a specific project or task. But an even more important reason to venture into the world of mobile learning is that newer workers in the workforce, the Millennials, are demanding it.  
  • The need to make social media and mobile learning a part of the workplace to attract, engage, and retain the younger generations is forcing learning professionals to explore new and innovative ways to deliver learning on these inexpensive devices, anytime and anywhere.  
    • Stephanie Cooper
       
      This also applies to professors.  Since mobile learning is becoming a reality in the workplace, students need to be prepared for it.  
  • Morgan Stanley estimates that by 2015, more users will connect to the Internet via mobile devices than by desktop PC. “Our world,” Jeanne Meister and Karie Willyerd wrote in a July T+D article, “will turn into three-minute learning vignettes.” GPS sensitivity, according to Meister and Willyerd, will help new hires find checkpoints so they can learn the company and its history, and could alert us when we are near an expert in a topic of our choice. “Perhaps the future role of learning is to find, organize, and enable the experts,” Meister and Willyerd wrote.   Learning is trending toward the user and the moment of need. Workplace learning and performance professionals need to redefine the role that mobile learning will play in their learning initiatives because if they don’t, they risk being left behind in this new workplace paradigm.  
Keith Hamon

Open Education for Writers | Academe Blog - 1 views

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    I'm delighted to report that our efforts to grow Writing Commons like an academic journal have worked out really well.  We've reviewed over 75 new webtexts, and we are in the process of publishing some excellent free resources for college students.  Perhaps the most exciting result is that traffic is really blowing up!  Since February of this year, 105,532 unique visitors have accessed Writing Commons.
Keith Hamon

Getting More Out of Student Blogging | Sue Waters Blog - 0 views

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    So I've put together tips for getting the most out of blogging with your student (you can watch the recorded ETMOOC student blogging session here). For more information I recommend you work through our step by step guide to blogging with students.
Stephanie Cooper

Forsyth's Teaching Resources - 0 views

  • But writing assignments are not just exercises in grammar and grading. They are exercises in learning
  • Psychologists and other cognitive scientists know so much about psycholinguistics, language, and memory that they should well understand the close link between composition and knowledge. Yet many view writing as only a means of assessing a students' understanding of course material, and overlook the profound impact that the writing process has on understanding itself
  • The act of writing is an act of thought
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  • Writing, then, is a profoundly active learning experience, for when people write, they identify and define problems, evaluate evidence, analyze assumptions, recognize emotional reasoning and oversimplification, consider alternative interpretations, and reduce their uncertainty (Wade, 1995). Indeed, in many cases writers do not understand a concept clearly until they must organize their thoughts on the topic and communicate those thoughts through composition. As a result, authors are often surprised by the ideas they themselves write, for understanding emerges during the struggle to make points clear to others (Murray, 1985).
  • Professors who wish to add just one element of student-centered instruction to an otherwise professor-centered approach should start by asking students to write. These writing assignments may include the traditional favorites-term papers and essay tests-but Walvoord (1982) wisely recommends giving shorter, but more varied and frequent, writing assignments.
  • When students write they are learning to use "the traditions of language to discipline their thinking and to make that thinking clear to others" (Murray, 1985, p. 52). Unfortunately, many students will need coaching on the process of writing and feedback about the quality of the writing they generate. The professor must, as Walvoord (1982, p. 3) suggests, "make writing assignments meaningful, establish a wholesome and stimulating writing environment for their students, coach pupils in the writing process, respond accurately and specifically to student papers, communicate clearly with students about their writing successes and failures, and help student improve writing as they learn and in order to learn."
  • Clarify the assignment. Nodine (1999) notes that students need to learn about writing assignments as much as they need to learn about writing per se. Telling the students to "write a 5-10 page paper on one of the topics covered in this unit" is likely to frustrate students and disappoint professors. Instead, the assignment should explain the paper's purpose, the audience for the paper, the genre, voice, typical length, style, degree of documentation expected, and deadlines.
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    Writing as an exercise in learning
Keith Hamon

Teachers Guide on The Use of Wikis in Education - 1 views

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    According to Leuf and Cunningham, a wiki is "a free expandable collection of interlinked webpages, a hypertext system for storing and modifyinh information, a data base, where each page is easily edited by any user." A Wiki can be thought of as a combination of a web site and a Word document. At its simplest, it can be read just like any other web site, with no access privileges necessary, but its real power lies in the fact that groups can collaboratively work on the content of the site using nothing but a standard web browser. The Wiki is gaining  traction in education as an ideal tool for collaborative work.
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