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Creating 2.0-style textbooks?

July 10, 2008 Back in June, my colleague Jeff, who teaches Global Studies, shared his disappointment that one of the weekly magazines he relied on for his course readings ceased publication. 

It occurred to me that we might be thinking about class readings and sharing content in a completely different way, in a fresher, far more dynamic way. 

Over the past school year, Jeff and I worked together to help students create individual iGoogle pages to support their senior research.  The gadgets/widgets we used for those classes worked very well and we discussed using iGoogle as a starting point for keeping up with feeds for global needs.  I wrote about some of our experiences in previous posts.

But how could we set up a shared reading and reflecting experiences if everyone had their own individual iGoogle pages? 

My first duh:
Around a year ago, iGoogle added a Share this tab, function.  And if materials we wanted were not available as an official gadget, we could embed a GoogleReader gadget and subscribe to nearly every journal or newspaper with a feed.  We could also embed links to a variety of collaborative Google tools--docs, calendars, etc.  And we could easily send any tab we created to all our Global Studies students. An easy option.

    

My second duh:
PageFlakes allows me to Pagecast any page I create to share as a web page link with anyone, regardless of whether they have an account.  So I set up a test page to play with and I hope Jeff and I can refine it before class starts.  I've currently selected resources.  I suspect we'll add tools shortly.  I chose to make this one public, but privacy options are available.

 

So what?

• Textbooks age before they even hit our classrooms.  They homogenize way before they are published. It might not work for every subject area, but is this one strategy we might use to enhance, democratize, customize, and invigorate class readings?
• If we embed the right tool gadgets/widgets, collaborative writing, planning, and building could happen right in the content space.
• Our students could easily suggest additional feeds and widgets or gadgets they find useful and participate in building our text. 
• This activity models the kind of lifelong learning we want to encourage.  I want learners to know they can develop tabs or flakes and gather widgets for their emerging information needs regardless of how casual or how formal.
• This activity models yet another way we can help our faculty build information resources they need to improve their own practice.
• This activity emphasizes the need to be able to also embed the fine content provided by our database vendors. Why shouldn't this stuff be as available to subscribers as the free content?  Vendors, we really want your widgets. 

BTW (and here's yet a third duh), beyond developing specific classroom content, all these widgets and feeds had me wondering how we might be embedding RSS feeds into our existing wiki pathfinders. 

I discovered that the folks at Dr. Charles Best Secondary School Library have already provided us an abundance of fine models.  Back to the wiki drawing board for me.

Posted by Joyce Valenza Ph.D on July 10, 2008 | Comments (3)