Last week Mike Bogle and I caught up with Ben Miller from FASS to discuss his 2009 wikispaces pilot for his Unit HUMS3001: Censorship and Responsibility.
We had a range of great pilots across UNSW to trial and evaluate wikispaces as a hub for learning and teaching but Ben’s really stood out. Despite the fact that Ben had little previous experience using wikis for learning and teaching, and the students even less, he supported the students to move to a space where they confidently authored the site, constructing content for the course as it flowed. Ben was brave enough to step back and allow the students to become centre stage but he also explicitly developed skills around digital literacies as he went.
With only a day to go I’d like to nominate Ben for a 2009 Edublog Award in the category of ‘Best educational wiki’.
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[...] Students loved the wiki and after several weeks, were building most of the content for the site – summarizing theories on free speech, arguing their viewpoints, and highlighting censorship cases that they wanted to further explore. The final product was a rich body of knowledge that helped the students prepare for their end-of-year exam. We encourage you to check out this wiki and listen to Ben’s discussion about his wiki project. [...]
[...] in the last couple of weeks about student engagement in course wikis – feedback ranged from students who didn’t stop contributing even after exams were complete, through to cases where students just ‘didn’t see the [...]