Students have turned to wikis — Web sites edited by members of the public — more than most professors would like. Now at least one professor has tossed out textbooks in favor of the controversial Web medium.
Gerald C. Kane, an assistant professor of information systems at Boston College, encourages his students to use a commercially provided wiki for conducting research and collaborating with other students, reports Computerworld. There are no paper books in his “Computers in Management” course, just Web tools.
Making the switch helps change his role from lecturer to a guide for students, Kane says. Students can use the wiki to post papers online before handing them in, he says, so that classmates can learn from each other as much as they learn from him. —Dan Carnevale
