Posted: September 23rd, 2007 by Alison Ruth

Categorised as:  innovation  Te[a]ching 

This is what happens when you get too busy.  There are so many new things, so many ideas burgeoning that it's hard to keep up.  That's probably one of the reasons I like wikis for learning - students get to keep me up to date.

One of the interesting things appearing in my overflowing inbox (currently down to 220+ from 260+) was a list of top 100 tools for learning.  I found it really interesting that the number 1 tool was Firefox.  It's amazing how we come to value just getting onto the web.  Some of the comments given about Firefox were:

What amazes me about these comments is their locational aspect.  They all point towards web physicality.  I wonder if I can use them in that paper I'm writing.  They certainly resonate with some of my findings from my PhD.  This one actually reminds me of me:
So it comes as no surprise, I suppose that it was #1. 

Blackboard, on the other hand, come in at #101.  Maybe the respondents were all mavericks operating outside a formalised system, but I'm starting to find that Blackboard (AKA Learning@Griffith) is central to teaching and learning here at Griffith, or it could become so, if we all had time to work out how it worked.

The second interesting thing was an article in computer world on Wikis as text books.  In the conclusion of the article Gerald Kane (the teacher involved) states that My wiki is my textbook now.  I can kinda relate to that, given the Mobile Workforce Technologies Wiki, but I would have said "Their [students] wiki is their textbook".  The student centeredness of wikis is what really draws me (and them) in.

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