[Year 12 IPM] wiki textbook, blogs and podcasts

[Joseph Papaleo]

In relation to the digital textbook idea, I have waited for someone else to
suggest this, but no one has.  So I'll go out on a limb and put this idea
out into the IPM community, perhaps to ridicule, perhaps others have also
considered it, but not put it up for comment.



I am seriously considering having my students write their own collaborative
textbook online.  I am looking at having a class text book (Potts) and then
creating a set of blank wiki pages for the class.  At this stage, I am
undecided as to whether it would be restricted access or open to the public.

Their task will be to prepare a summary and answer questions and put their
work onto the wiki.  Students will share the workload, but it will be their
task to read additional material (other books or websites I will source) and
add to the notes.  Of course, this sounds like a lot of work, bit as
"Student A" may have already done most of the summarising, "Students B, C D
E ..." just have to add other tidbits or fix errors (the beauty of a wiki).
By carefully rotating the tasks amongst the class, each will be given a
variety of tasks that must be done carefully as the other class members will
hopefully rely on them.

I have been playing with a wiki for my Year 12 class in the latter half of
this year and found that weaker students had their answers corrected online
by better students and all of a sudden, they realised how poor their work
standard was and it improved each time it was their turn to add work to the
site.

I hope to then keep the wiki content for 2008 and beyond (remove the
questions each year) and then use this and Potts as a textbook which they
can continue to develop.

I'll be the first to admit their are flaws with this, but I can see lots of
benefits too.  So do the students who contribute regularly as they are
sharing the resource and then doing extra reading/writing.

If there is interest from other list members, I would consider opening it up
for others to join in.

I am now looking at establishing a class blog or bloki and finding ways to
incorporate these ideas into the curriculum.  I saw other members of the
list discuss the possibilities of using podcasts and am keen to look at this
(I was stoked a few weeks ago when one of my students took his iPod out to
retrieve a .txt file of the Information Processing Steps he had entered onto
the iPod).  has anyone else seen other examples of this use of the iPods?

I struggle with numbers like many others and so with the new Study Design,
I've decided to use IT in my IT class and make it  rich, real and relevant.


Regards,

Joseph Papaleo
Ivanhoe Grammar School
Mernda Campus,
Plenty
joseph.papaleo at igs.vic.edu.au

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