Re: [seul-edu] wikis in education (was: SEUL/edu wiki test) (fwd)

[Gunnar Stefansson <gunnar@hafro.is>]

> At 09:23 AM 01/19/2001 +0000, you wrote:
> <snip>
> >Of course the current educational system is to narrow and >does not let
> individual students find their appropriate >niche, but every student needs
> some hand-holding in order >to learn rather than muddle around.
> I would have to disagree with this--my experience is the exact
> opposite--students can participate in activities outside of the normal
> school curriculum.  As for "the current educational system is to narrow and
> does not let individual students find their appropriate niche" - it has not
> been my experience that the opportunities are not there--for example--in
> 1996, I founded Web Spinners (officially chartered in 1997), a web design
> and development group at the University of West Florida, before there were
> organized classes for the topic.  This group has already done several
> things that have not been done before, and therefore, as a group and as
> individuals, members have found "appropriate niches".

I realize that I have overgeneralized - sorry about that.  I think
however that we all know about schools where the classroom follows a
fixed curriculum and both the above-and below-average students get
left out.

> <snip>
> >In particular, the web concept is a bit inappropriate since >the student
> should be discouraged from deviating too much >from what (s)he is studying
> at the moment - or rather:
> >encouraged to finish what (s)he is doing rather than jump >around endlessly.
> If that is the case, then why are more US and Canadian universities
> introducing either individual online classes or entire online degree
> programs?  If they believe it is worth the cost (and there is a cost
> associated with such programs), then there must be enough students that
> will do the exact opposite and have fun doing it and therefore justify the
> cost.

Well, I have looked at some examples of WebCT in particular and this
is completely contrary to how I would have seen a reasonably designed
curriculum - there really is no consistency in anything - each
instructor does what (s)he likes etc; conflicting formats of courses
etc etc.  Seemed to do little to foster cooperation and reuse of
course material.

I would like to be able to take a subset of a linear algebra course
and plug it into my statistics course.  Can't be done unless there is
some structure to things...

> >I don't really see the point of chat-rooms or equivalents >at all --
> Chat rooms can be used for "real-time" discussions which isn't truly
> possible utilizing usenet news feeds--we use it in several groups I'm in,
> including SEUL, OODS, LinuxKB, etc.

OK, I guess these things have their place - just that I can't see how
I would use it over and above e-mail/newsfeeds.


Gunnar