February 25, 2008
Project Aims to Build Online Classroom With Latest Web 2.0 Features
Howard Rheingold was one of the first popular authors to write about the promises of online social networks, starting with his 1993 book, The Virtual Community. Now he’s bringing the latest online-community tools — wikis, videos, blogs, and the like — to the college classroom.
And what better way to encourage professors to use online community tools than to create an online community where professors can talk about the topic? That’s what Mr. Rheingold plans to do, along with putting together a set of how-to guides to help other professors use social-media tools, which are sometimes referred to collectively as “Web 2.0.”
The project is called the Social Media Virtual Classroom, and last week it won a $61,000 grant in the Digital Media and Learning Competition. The competition was sponsored by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Humanities, Arts, Sciences, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory, otherwise known as HASTAC.
Mr. Rheingold said in an interview that students need to be exposed to “participatory media” in order to become active citizens, since he believes that political activism has increasingly moved online.
“In the 21st century, civic education is participatory media literacy education,” he said. “The feeling of a citizen who only passively consumes what’s sold to them by broadcast media is very different from someone who has posted a blog item or who has posted a YouTube post, or who has commented on a newspaper article online.”
Other projects that won the digital-learning competition include an effort to use laptop computers as musical instruments and an online community for professors working on virtual worlds like Second Life. —Jeffrey R. Young
Posted on Monday February 25, 2008 | Permalink |Comments
Commenting is closed for this article.
Previous: Clicker Devices Flunk Test by Giving Perfect Scores
Next: Chronicle Tech Forum: Top Trends in Campus Technology
This does not seem all that novel. At ELI 2008 in San Antonio I saw courses constructed using Ning as well as with Blogs and RSS aggregators. Many people are doing this. I guess Rheingold gets the biggest piece of cheese due to his popularity quotient.
— Drew Feb 25, 10:47 AM #
Yes, this stuff has been around for ages, but some of it is the domain of true techies and not the “normal” faculty and students. I am looking forward to seeing what this project will produce that is useful in the real world.
— Kate Feb 25, 04:50 PM #
For those interested in a more complete description of the project, which includes the toolset, curricula (syllabi and teaching notes), resource repository (started here), video documentation and instructional material (in the vein of the first several entries), and the community of practitioners: the text of the award application
— Howard Rheingold Feb 25, 04:52 PM #
Two more links: A syllabus and a chapter I wrote about civic engagement and participatory media
— Howard Rheingold Feb 25, 10:00 PM #
I once painted my mutt white with black polka dots and called him a dalmation.
Another time, I spray painted him gold and called him a golden retriever.
Why, I even put a saddle on him before the Kentucky Derby and called him a Thoroughbred.
Folks would always get excited at the animal’s great potential, but eventually the paint wore off and they saw that it was the same old dog.
— A. Gorestein Feb 26, 12:02 PM #
I seem to have stumbled into Slashdot, land of the armchair critics, thinking I was connecting with a community of educators. Or maybe the inability to do anything but snipe is a side-effect of being institutionalized for too long. In any case, anyone who is actually interested in helping and/or benefitting can find me easily enough.
— Howard Rheingold Feb 27, 01:30 PM #
Your work, as always, is fascinating and intriguing. I’ve run into my own brand of resistance in the field, mainly from misunderstanding rather than informed opinion of how media is shaping us. I suppose we’ll do what we’ve been doing the last few years in academia and wallow in our misunderstanding until some administrator buys into the latest proprietary classroom management software. Kudos to you, Mr. Rheingold, for always being ahead of the snake oil salesman. I look forward to the growth and development of your project and hope that it stays free and open to those of us willing to meet students in the learning environment instead of binding them to the rigid ivory towers of our own genesis.
— Dr. B. Feb 29, 05:47 PM #