The November 28 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education has an article entitled "Weblogs Come to the Classroom." (subscription required for access)
Increasingly, private life is a public matter. That seems especially true in the phenomenon known as blogging. Weblogs, or blogs, are used by scores of online memoirists, editorialists, exhibitionists, and navel gazers, who post their daily thoughts on Web sites for all to read.
Now professors are starting to incorporate blogs into courses. The potential for reaching an audience, they say, reshapes the way students approach writing assignments, journal entries, and online discussions.
The stuff about weblogs in the classroom is pretty standard fare, though it's nice to see it finally getting some coverage in the academic press. Unfortunately, it leaves out a lot of the folks in my sidebar who are using (and talking about) weblogs in classes, and doesn't mention "hub" sites like Educational Blogs and Weblogg-Ed.
There's some mention of wikis, as well, but the professor quoted (Patricia Pecoy at Furman University, who doesn't appear to have a weblog of her own...) clearly isn't aware of a lot of the already existing uses of wiki in educational contexts:
Ms. Pecoy also sees a technology that she says could soon rival blogs -- a type of online program called a "Wiki." As with a blog, users can post comments on a Wiki. But unlike a blog, anyone who uses the Wiki can edit and change any of the posted comments. Such a feature could be useful in Ms. Pecoy's class, where students could help polish and correct their peers' French, she says.
"In Hawaiian, 'wiki wiki' means 'quick,' and this is a quick way to have a collaborative writing project," she says. "No one I know of is using one yet, but that is coming down the pike next."
A Google search on "course wiki" yields quite a few hits, including a wiki page that collects links to educational wikis.
