Classroom 2.0: The Book - A Collaborative Project
So I've been mulling this over for a couple of months, and I think we should do it.
I'd like to propose that as a community we work together to create a book on the uses and impact of Web 2.0 in education. This could be in the form of a wiki or a downloadable PDF file, or both, and would involve the outlining of the the book's contents, then working together to write it. We would want chapters introducing Web 2.0 principles and pedagogies, specific technologies by category (blogs, wikis, social networks, etc.), and give lots of practical examples of their actual use both for classroom application and professional development.
Of course, the content will need to be updated and/or changed with some regularity, but if this idea is a good one, we could schedule to do minor changes every 6 months and major changes every year.
If we were to have a print version (Lulu?), or if a publisher (dreaming?) wanted to pick it up, we could use any revenues to help sponsor the free workshop series.
There are a number of questions we'd have to answer if we decided to do this: how do we delegate and oversee contributions, who would do final edits, what platform would we use to write it (wiki, Google docs, other?), what license to release it under, and many more I'm sure you will think of that I haven't. I'm going to propose that we hold an Elluminate session to talk these through and do the initial organizing, but before we do so I thought it might be good to get some feedback from you first.
Do you like the idea? Do you have any initial thoughts?
I'd like to propose that as a community we work together to create a book on the uses and impact of Web 2.0 in education. This could be in the form of a wiki or a downloadable PDF file, or both, and would involve the outlining of the the book's contents, then working together to write it. We would want chapters introducing Web 2.0 principles and pedagogies, specific technologies by category (blogs, wikis, social networks, etc.), and give lots of practical examples of their actual use both for classroom application and professional development.
Of course, the content will need to be updated and/or changed with some regularity, but if this idea is a good one, we could schedule to do minor changes every 6 months and major changes every year.
If we were to have a print version (Lulu?), or if a publisher (dreaming?) wanted to pick it up, we could use any revenues to help sponsor the free workshop series.
There are a number of questions we'd have to answer if we decided to do this: how do we delegate and oversee contributions, who would do final edits, what platform would we use to write it (wiki, Google docs, other?), what license to release it under, and many more I'm sure you will think of that I haven't. I'm going to propose that we hold an Elluminate session to talk these through and do the initial organizing, but before we do so I thought it might be good to get some feedback from you first.
Do you like the idea? Do you have any initial thoughts?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Allison Weiss on
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I love the idea and you can count on me to help. I'm working on a few projects right now, organizing my thoughts around specific pedagogies working with technology in duplicatable ways... blah, blah, blah.. I won't bore you with the details. Suffice it say, I'm 100% on board and I'll be thinking of ways to help organize/structure the project.
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Permalink Reply by Steve Hargadon on
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Awesome. Let's see if others like the idea!
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Permalink Reply by nlowell on
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Sign me up, Steve.
But I don't do Elluminate.
Ever.
Lemme know where the other discussions might happen ...
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We can try Dim Dim. I've wanted to try it.
Why no Elluminate?
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Basically comes down to the tyranny of synchrony and my experience that Elluminate sessions are when a bunch of people get together in a chat room so that somebody who controls the microphone can talk to them and show a powerpoint presentation. I've attended about 10 in the last couple of years and after the last one, I vowed never to go back.
I probably should have said "Ever again."
In the collaborative task you've outlined, I just don't see the benefit of voice, certainly not the video, and if you're going to show a powerpoint, I'm off the project. :)
If you wanna have the discussion there, it's your discussion to have. Personally, I'd rather see some text based chats where we could save the transcripts, where bandwidth limits are not the bottleneck, and where everybody could have a voice. I'd like to see some async discussions -- perhaps in a group here on the Ning where we could organize our thinking -- and then set up a wiki when we have enough outline established to be able to operate on it rationally.
But that's me.
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Permalink Reply by samccoy on
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DimDim or Live Ustream w/ Chatzy or something else would be great as a finalizing or for meetings when people have some product to provide. It seems to me that @nlowell has a valid point of use asynchronous methods of text responses & wiki (or GoogleDocs) along w/synchronous chat would move the ideas along w/more people able to contribute and analyze others contributions at length.
The whole idea is an awesome inspiration for analyzing impact of Web2.0 in Education. I would really enjoy helping.
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Permalink Reply by John Faig on
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Sounds like a great idea! How can I help?
my $0.02 upfront:
need a comprehensive list of Web 2.0 technologies with:
1. brief description of capabilities
2. categories of tools
3. example classroom lesson plans
4. potential pitfalls
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Very practical focus. I think a video or some type of slideshow or groups of those would be helpful in the brief description of capablities. How would that translate to a book? You could have a CD/DVD like we got w/Brain Rules.
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Steve Hargadon,
Do you want to spear-head this or should I? I would like to set up a Google Doc or a shared whiteboard (whiteboard.com) to build an outline and see the scope of this endeavor and who is interested?
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Well, as much as @nlowell is wary of an Elluminate meeting, I think it would be VERY helpful to get those who are interested into a meeting to brainstorm and map out the *how* of this project. For me, "voice" helps a lot there. However, let's see how much we can do that here for @nlowell's sake...
I'm specifically interested in drilling down on:
1) What can we do that would really make the project most useful in a big-picture way? What audience we are hoping to help, and why would we create such a resource? Why not just use our wiki for this? Is there something about being able to download or print or give to others a "book" that would increase understanding and adoption?
2) What is the best form for the ongoing *work* of the project? A wiki? Google Docs? Something else? Do we use one method to create and edit it, and another to dissseminate?
3) If this is a "book," is it possible to create a form for this project that significantly reduces the administrative tasks, so that updating and re-distribution are easy?
4) What would be the best way to get and then manage broad and inclusive participation? Do we create a larger outline and then ask for volunteers to write specific parts, giving them a "chapter template?" How do we feel if certain topics don;t get covered? If more than one person wants to work on a specific topic, do we encourage independent contributions or joint efforts?
5) What licensing choices should we make in advance so as to facilitate contribution but not constrain dissemination?
:)
5) Is it possible to
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By all means, go with the Elluminate discussion if that'll help. It's my bias so you shouldn't be constrained by it. Personally, I don't find voice useful in brainstorming sessions unless that's the only technology available. Online, it never is, but go with your comfort level here. All *I* ask is there there are multiple ways to contribute and that voice isn't the only channel.
1. If our mission is to illuminate "the uses and impact of Web 2.0 in education" then I think we have at least two if not three audiences. Teachers, administrators, and legislators. I'm not sure if we go with students. My contributory question on this part is "which teachers?" pK-12? pK-20?
As for the distribution questions, if we want the broadest adoption, we write it as a book and submit the manuscript to somebody like St Martin's Press for actual deadtree publication even tho it'll be obsolete by the time it ever gets a galley proof. Personally, I think there are enough people online to make it worth doing electronically, but I also we should be pretty frank in the assessment that we'd be lucky to get even the 13000 members of CR20 to read it. Compared to the 8-10million "educators" in the US alone, thats a drop in the bucket, but it's still a start. In a certain sense we'd be preaching to the choir where a dead-tree version would be available to those who've heard that there's kool-aid but haven't tasted it yet. (My verbosity reflects my ambivalence here)
2. I'm partial to wiki's .. specifically mediawiki. It has what I think are the right levels of protection, history, format, and discussion. It's also what I'm most familiar with and I can work with google docs, if needed.
3. I think we need to define "book" before we can answer this.
4. Det--Devil--ails.
5. My vote: CC-BY-AT
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