Wiki's and Blogs and Social Software Oh my!

Approximately approximately 7 enthusiastic participants wanting to make sense of how social software is being used, what it is, and how it could be applied to their individual situations attended the afternoon session..

The first area of discussion is what is the difference between a Blog and a Wiki. After some discussion it was basically determined that a Blog is best used as a form of personal communication or thought that is shared with the world in general, and that a Wiki is more of a community / group oriented endeavor where individuals can post information for community review and comment. Although the lines between a Blog and a Wiki are not completely black and white this provided a working definition for the group.

For examples of Blogs and Wikis check out the following sites:

Blogs

http://www.bloglines.com/

http://www.blogger.com/start

Wikis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki

http://pbwiki.com/

http://colab.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage

The remainder of the discussion focused on how can we incorporate these types of new technologies into our current training to enhance the experience for learners and make the curriculum that we are delivering more relevant. Individuals discussed their current situations such as:

Making the 1933 and 1934 securities act more engaging and relevant. Currently users attend an expert lead symposium where questions and answers are exchanged. The f-2-f version of the training is great success, but how can we make this available to the other individuals who want the training but don’t want to watch 14 hours of online video?

Increasing student participation and engagement in an Engineering Communications class. Recently student attendance at traditional lectures has seen a sharp decline as the students are satisfied that if they have the curriculum and textbook they do not need to attend the lectures.

A third example focused on how the face-2-face portion of an existing course in the military could be enhanced using the tools available to make it more interactice and engaging for the students. Approximately 75% of the course is already hands on, put how can the classroom PowerPoint presentation be improved.

Judging from the first session the new practitioners want to make a difference but need the instructional design support to find out how best to use these technologies. Perhaps the next step is not just providing the participants with tools such as Articulate, Captivate, and Flash but helping to provide real world examples of how Wiki’s , Blogs, and other social software is being used to support instruction and different educational programmes.