wikis: turning disadvantage into advantage

I think I was probably the only one in the lecture who does not use Wikipedia. That's not to say I haven't heard of it before, but I remember being told, years ago (perhaps at uni first time round, or in high school) that the information on Wikipedia is not reliable, and so I've never really bothered with it after that. I've also never bothered thinking about how the information on Wikipedia is created so the lecture was actually a bit of an eye opener for me!

One of the disadvantages brought up in the lecture is the lack of 'expert' quality control, meaning that students could be picking up false information. However I don't see this as a disadvantage, it is just something teachers have to be aware of so they can arm their students with appropriate skills.

Students must be taught how to critically analyse all sources of information, whether it be a wiki or a book, to construct their own understanding. Wikis may not be expertly controlled but as long as students are aware of this they should be allowed to decide for themselves, through further inquiry, whether the information they provide is valid or not.

This inquiry approach, where students are the ones deciding which information is important/valid/correct is so much more engaging, and will lead to a deeper understanding than reading an encyclopedia ever will.

Classroom 2.0

Right, I'm getting into the swing of things. I found this social network for people interested in web 2.0 and its use in education. Go check it out www.classroom20.com

My first ever post!

Hello, and wecome to my blog!

This is all jolly exciting as it is the first time I have ventured into the world of blogging....gee look at me go!! I must admit that I am not doing this completely off my own back though. I am training to be a primary school teacher and studying a unit called Teaching and Learning with New Technologies, and this is part of the assessment!

I'm a little suprised by how much I am enjoying the unit so far (no offence Mark!). I wasn't sure what was going to be involved, and thought perhaps we were going to have 14 weeks of mastering the interactive whiteboard! Luckily that's not the case, and the first 3 weeks have opened my eyes to the fantastic possibilities of both web 1.0 and web 2.0 in the classroom.

I wouldn't really class myself as a digital native. Although I rememer having IT lessons when I was at primary school and am reasonable proficient when using various comperter programs I think I have been left behind with the emergence of the social websites. I guess I thought Twitter was just about people letting the whole world know what the had for breakfast this morning, which is a total waste of time, but I am beginning to see that if used in the correct way web 2.0 is a great forum for collaborative learing.

Right well I'm going to see what else my new blog can do!
Take it easy,
PW