A recent CnetNews.com article describes the different ways colleges and universities are using wikis in hopes that it will generate more excitement among the Millennials about their education. Highlighted users include Dartmouth film and medical school, and music students, iTunes U users at Texas A&M, and incoming Seton Hall freshman.
The move makes sense from a pedagogical standpoint. I see the push towards using this technology in the elementary schools here in Haines City, Florida. Surely students applying to some of the more well-known colleges will gravitate to wikis as part of their Web 2.0 college toolbox. I teach community college Humanities courses and have recently woven collaborative technology into my curriculum.
The best PR use of this technology can be seen at Texas A&M, where professors post three minute videos of themselves, highlighting their backgrounds, things that interest them, and the various courses they teach. Social networking also provides a way for students to connect prior to coming on campus – finding roommates, figuring out where to hang out, eat, see concerts, etc.
Once students reach campus, they are being encouraged to continue the use of Web 2.0 tools – using wikis, blogs, and other media to engage each other in intellectual conversations covering the course content their professors have posted to the web. This frees up a great deal of time for in-class ‘workshop’ style discussions, because student have fleshed out the basics of each lecture ahead of time. Besides, there’s the show off factor!
“A lot of students…like showing off their work. They like being published. They like being on display,” said Barbara Knauff, senior instructional technologist at Dartmouth College.
Temple University College of Medicine students are also using Web 2.0 to their advantage. Their professor, Dr. Michael Barrett, put his heartbeat sound samples on the web in the form of iPod downloads. As a result, student heartbeat recognition increased from 40 to 80 percent! Ah, the power of the pod!
There are those who feel these innovations may one day lead to changes in the way college campuses are designed. Claire Schooley, an analyst at Forrester Research states that:
”That interaction between student and professor is going to become more prominent where you have already read about or watched the lecture online. The days of the large university with a 300-person lecture hall are over,” said Schooley. “Universities will be built very differently, with the concentration on workshop life.”
Who knows, with the advent of 3D venues like Second Life, might the college campus may become a mere virtual shell of itself, with only a sports arena or football stadium to mark its physical presence? Most likely not. But it does give us something to think about!
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