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June 29, 2006, 03:15 PM ET
Sifting Through 'a Constellation of Tools'
Food for thought for the week: Blogging Pedagogy points to a thoughtful essay by Joseph Ugoretz on “Social Software, Folksonomy, and User Reviews in the College Context.”
Mr. Ugoretz, the director of teaching and learning with technology at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, argues that much-trafficked Web sites like Wikipedia, Facebook, Flickr, and even RateMyProfessors all belong to a “constellation of tools” that is dramatically altering the way users process information: [I]n all of the cases, these tools, these resources, lack a central authority or a hierarchy of editorial control. In all of these cases the content and the conclusions and the references are communally negotiated and collaboratively assembled. And our students are using these tools. They are going to use them, whether we want them to or not, or whether we have thought about them or not.
Mr. Ugoretz goes on to suggest a number of steps that professors can take to focus that communal energy instead of fighting against it. He encourages professors, for example, to create exercises that require students to test online resources against each other—or against students’ own knowledge. And he recommends that professors use class wikis as motivational tools: When students know their work will be floating out on the public Web, Mr. Ugoretz argues, “the responsibility for the quality, efficacy and accuracy of that work is deepened.” —Brock Read
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