An example of the Wiki way

Isn’t the internet just great. It really is a power-to-the-people tool that allows Joe Soap to get a word in edgeways.

The so-called web 2.0 tools are easy to use and often free meaning that anyone with a laptop and a web connection can partake, and partake we do. A side-effect is that big corporate institutions don’t hold as much sway as they used to. Now we en-masse have the tools to say ‘hang on a minute…’.

A number of years when I was first introduced to Wikis, I thought they were a great idea in theory but too clumsy and awkward to use to take off. That’s certainly not the case anymore. Here’s an example…

At the end of January, the UK Gov published “Digital Britain“, a plan of how they are going to ensure that the UK is a big player in the global digital economy.  Fair enough.

However many people weren’t so keen on it and figured they could do a better job themselves. In the offline world this would have required an investment of time devoted to sheer logistics and phone calls as well as the putting together of their actual report. But a Wiki allows them to do it much more easily and effectively. Their work in progress can be found here.

Not being a Brit I wouldn’t feel right doing a compare and contrast. I just want to say that this is a really great example of what Wikis can be used for as well as allowing citizens a say in Digital Britain. Curious that there is a Gov-run forum inviting any interested and individuals to discuss the issues relating to Digital Britain. I wonder how many of the Wiki people joined in.

 

Talking about what generation

I came across an interesting item in Weblogg-ed about The Dumbest Generation – a review of Mark Bauerline’s take on how students are not benefiting from the digital world in any way that will make them more discerning, literate, analytical, knowledgeable, etc.

Here’s a copy of my comment -

I’ve been teaching IT in business for almost a dozen years and I believe that the students I see in front of me are getting more and more tech-literate every year. Yes, there are still those who need someone else to set up their Bebo page but they want that Bebo page. What is more interesting is what they do with these tech tools. Increasingly they are reaching outside of their classroom and immediate environment into the wider world, forming attachments with people and (in many cases worthwhile) causes that would be outside their reach if it wasn’t for their tech tools. In my view, to say that students of today aren’t enriched by web2.0 (or whatever you want to call it) is doing them a disservice. It is up to us the teachers and lecturers to reach out to the students “extra-curricular” digital activities and apply / tweak them to the classroom and learning outcomes for our courses. The kids aren’t dumb. If the course content that we want / need to teach them doesn’t grab their attention through traditional means, we need to tune into a toolset that they can relate to. Hello digital media, here we come.