Blogs & Wikis for Learning — a few resources…

, Sharing. Collaboration. Community. Expression. These are all buzz words which dominate the 'learning' scene these days.

Blogs and wikis are essentially similar since they allow you to concentrate on creating content by letting you quickly create or update a website without the hassle of learning the technology or the programming which makes it possible. While a blog is, almost always, a tool of personal expression, a wiki is a more collective expression of information.

The Google For Educators page summarizes several real-world applications of these learning tools:

1. They make "it easy for teachers and students to share work, class notes, and pictures online."
2. From a teacher's perspective blogs and wikis lets one " stay connected to your students, their parents, and the rest of the school…", and perform several functions like "updating parents about their children's progress" and keeping "them posted on upcoming events; publishing a class or school newsletter; sharing photos and student work; posting course documents, projects and results;…" et al.
3. A teacher could also use a blog to "…assign collaborative group projects online with an easy way to track students’ progress…"
4. Among a host of other things, students can use blogs and wikis to:
1. "…Communicate ideas, photos and class notes…"
2. "…Create hubs for collecting information for both long and short-term projects…"
3. "…Store information as unpublished drafts…"
4. "…Collect feedback on their work from classmates, teachers and parents…:
5. Participate in "…collaborative projects where multiple students can work and comment…"

A few good resources mentioned in the same place has a number of resources which make for very interesting reading:

• The Teaching Today tips section
  
• The eMINTS section about blogs and wikis
• Examples of how blogs are being used for learning on my-ecoach.com

3D Learning Animations/Simulations using Blender, TrueSpace, or GoogleSketchUp

Most of us learn more visually these days and so, I was looking for tools which will allow an instructional designer to make 3D animations/simulations for more interesting learning.

To get a 3D animation/model/simulation done and instructional designer could:

1. Buy and learn how to use expensive 3D tool like 3D Studio Max, Maya, SoftImage XSI, Lightwave etc.
2. Employ the services of a 3D expert who has and can use these tools. This too can be expensive.
3. Do it themselves using something which is either cheap or better still free :)
   

The OpenSource movement and the Google- Microsoft battle for supremacy have provided interesting and powerful options for an instructional designer to make learning more interesting. I had the following criteria for selecting the tools:

1. Should be free
2. Should be easy to get and legal to use across a variety of environments.
   
3. Should have resources available which make them easy to learn and use.

I found these (click the links to go the respective site and download the tools):

1. Blender - +ve (Small, works on multiple OSes, powerful) | -ve (Comparatively steep learning curve)
2. Google Sketchup +ve (Works from a browser, easiest to use and learn) | -ve (Not so easy to transfer content onto non-Google platforms if you don't buy the full version :( )
3. TrueSpace +ve (Perhaps as powerful as 3D Max/Maya etc., Official Tutorials are Free) | -ve (Comparatively steep learning curve)

They say in the OpenSource movement to think hard before one wishes for an application -- wishes often come true :). Blender is a good example of this.

Like I mentioned, Google and Microsoft's tussle, has been quite good for the end users. When Google came up with Sketchup and gave it away free, Microsoft went ahead and bought Caligari Corporation, and then started giving away TrueSpace 3D for free! To make things sweeter and encourage people to use the tool, Microsoft is providing training for free as well.
Google of course has a huge user base who provide the 'training' on Sketchup to get you up and started.

Of course getting the tools is just the first step to making good training. My guess would veer towards a future where an instructional designer would use these and other tools to make learning more interesting. With all three the users already collaborate online a great deal and this can result in creation of content which aids collaborative learning as well.

Leave a comment and let me know what you think...