Tommi Rantanen published some sobering thoughts on the topic of Finland: not the promised land of technology on his Endless lesson blog (nice title, by the way). What caught my eye was the reference to a PDF from USC on their use of Confluence campus-wide. The PDF is a case study published by Educause.
Some great nuggets of information on how a wiki is being used on campus.
How is it used?
- Student journaling
- Personal portfolios
- Collaborative knowledge base
- Research coordination and collaboration
Why a wiki?
- Expand critical thinking, self-reflection, faculty mentorship, and service learning beyond the boundaries of a specific course, a particular discipline, and a single semester.
- Team-based learning
- Social potential of online social networks
- Greater opportunities for collaboration
What’s noteworthy?
- Supports a wide range of pedagogical uses
- The entire process of selecting collaborative technology was itself a collaborative process between faculty, students, and research groups
- It’s created some replicable practices on campus
What I found to be equally intriguing was the way faculty tied wiki participation to students’ final grades. I think that’ll be the next pattern and use case on Wikipatterns!
You can read the entire PDF case study here.