I SAW a reply post under fakedave yesterday evening

ok - I give up

Summary reply: Wiki’s ARE textbooks. Critical consideration of all approaches to education is important - web2.0 (sucky name orielly!) is not a silver bullet!

What I would be interested in hearing is how the examples I point to are not courses? or how they are “just text books”? and what other examples like them you are aware of. Maybe you could use the Designing for Flexible Learning Practice example..?

To my mind, a text book is something that aims to be a definitive text on a particular topic that teachers use to refer to, or base an entire course on. They are usually structured in such a way so as to appear like a course, but instead of referring OUT to information, they attempt to represent all the information within them. Most of the examples of wiki courses I point to don’t do that, so I struggle to see how they are text books. I see how at first glance they might appear to do that, but the information in them is more like scaffolding than definitive information. In the Designing for Flexible Learning Practice example, it is simply a topic schedule based around a weekly pace. There is no definitive information contained within it, nor is there in the links out from it.. it is simply made up of stimulation media from essays to videos, with an activity set to either practice learning, test learning, or to present assessable evidence of learning. I’m not necessarily saying that the examples I point to include good learning activity design, but I still fail to see how they are just text books.. they appear to me to be in line with a course for learning with a minimal amount of information so as to set people on their independent way.. this is considerably different to a text book I think..

This is an important discussion to have, as I’m sure we both know that too many teachers fall into the trap of producing ‘text books’ when asked to develop online learning (which does not always have to be courses or text books for that matter). They end up working themselves far too hard, trying to produce a one stop place for information and knowledge. I know I find it hard to avoid at times. But I was sure that I was breaking the mold here and producing courses and schedules rather than text books. (Perhaps our definitions differ?)

Would you spare us 30 minutes to deconstruct the Designing for Flexible Learning Practice example? Try to ignore the content or activity design at this stage, that I agree is wanting. You effort here would be helpful for progressing the discussion I think, as it is now it risks reducing to a slagging match of who did what first and whether so and so is a fan boy or not (silly). If you elaborated on how you come to your conclusions, I think we might get somewhere.

It’s not that I don’t hold web 2.0 in high regard (I don’t - they’re just tools). It’s more that I am not a complete fanboy overawed, enamoured and completely blown away with them as the silver bullet which will democratise and save the world.

They are JUST tools. It’s really REALLY important to be critical of their use.

And btw - you don’t need to sign in to post on ITToolBox, it just takes a while for the post to appear, unlike this site which seems to reject any post using my real email address for some oh so strange reason.

Yes, my claim that a wiki can do everything an LMS does was a bit zealous… but you can add to Wikispaces for example just about any type of Web 2.0 tool you like, but Dave doesn’t seem to hold Web 2.0 tools in high regard, so I can understand why he would think this was funny. I’m so accustomed to mashup thinking that I don’t really think of something like a wiki as a standalone tool anymore. And it’s true I didn’t even think of things like grade books, but it didn’t even register that people were still using tools like that in teaching!

alisonruth: I agree wikis can be used as text books, as some of the examples in Leigh’s post show, but they are not just textbooks, which is what Dave says. My point is that they can be much, much more.

It does have a few good points though

Well f…..me as Gordon Ramsay would say.

Crude ? Unstructured ?

Get some order into the educational kitchen of yours Leigh would ya

I do NOT think it goes to far to call the examples you cite as “textbooks”

And Sean - I think Leigh often talks about online courses when he means what I see as an online text & lab book.

Now - there’s nothing wrong with a collaborativly written textbook if it’s any good.

I would prefer much much MUCH more discussion on the USE of the reference material.

I’m focused on whole course development because that’s what I do (not just talk about it). So far I don’t see anything that’s convincing. There’s examples all over the place for every single approach to education. Citing more simply shows that you’re not unique (which is a good thing). But examples of a practice do not do much to convince me that it is Good Practice.

And more and more discussions on how one tool differs from another doesn’t help either.

Wiki’s are just electronic textbooks. Useful in a course - but as an element to focus on they are not novel, and are often misused.

And the thought that wiki’s do everything that an LMS does is laughable … unless you develop an LMS around a wiki. It gets circular - if wiki’s do everything an LMS does, what differentiates it from an LMS. The anser to that is probably something that the wiki doesn’t do … so the wiki can’t do everything an LMS can.

Oh - it’s web2.0 … sorry didn’t notice that, I guess that makes it all right