Intro to Open Education

David Wiley, who works at Utah State University (USA), has a great weblog, called iterating toward openness. This title is quite right I think; only by iterating, which implies making mistakes etc, we will reach more openness. One other aspect of David Wiley that I like very much, is that he sets an example of who to "do" openness. He just does it!
So, today he is starting his "Introduction to Open Education" course! There are already over 20 participants, from all over the world, signed up.
David is using a wiki to manage his course, nothing else. he expects that participants use weblogs to work on their assignments. How about that? We don't need fancy virtual learning environments, with all those roles.... Blackboard, eat your heart out ( I am referring to their claim on a certain patent here ).

Why wiki?

There is some great stuff to be found everywhere on the web. The last thing I found (thanks Wilfred!) is a video on how and why to use a wiki. The video is made by CommonCraft, a web strategy consulting firm based in Seatlle (WA).
So here is the 4 minutes of video:

More social software in education!

So, this must be the year 2007 then! This will be a great year. There are lot of predictions for this year pouring in through my Bloglines. One recurring prediction is that social software will finally get mainstream for and in education. I sure hope so!
A teacher in Seattle, Mark Ahlness, starts of his new year with a great illustration of the aforementioned prediction:
"My 8 and 9 year old third graders (..) are alright with web 2.0. Many of them take it for granted. A third of my classroom has blogged from home over Christmas Vacation. (..) These kids are comfortable in the medium. My job is simply to give it to them. My resolution for 2007 is to give them more. They will not waste the opportunity."

WikiKids

Just a quick note here. There is a great example of the use of a wiki in K12 education here in The Netherlands. It is called WikiKids (only in Dutch). They have taken the Mediawiki software and adapted it for use by kids. And now they are starting to create a online encyclopedia by and for kids. It is a great example of kids that work together with other kids, as well as with teachers.

SamenvattingenWIKI

Social software at work, could have been the title of this post. I think that I pointed you to our campuswiki (that is entirely maintained by students on a voluntary basis) a few months ago.
But now I found an even greater example of the power of social software for educational purposes. This is called the SamenvattingenWIKI, where students can upload exams for all courses that we have on our campus. A small Dutch quote from the wiki: "Op deze WIKI kun je handige vakinformatie vinden van vakken die op Universiteit Twente worden gegeven. Hier worden o.a. tentamens met uitwerkingen, samenvattingen, oefenopdrachten en nog veel meer opgeslagen. Heb je nieuwe informatie, voeg deze toe. "