MACUL 2007
the MACUL Conference — the Michigan Association of Computer Users in Learning — is coming up and i’ve been accepted as a presenter. My presentation occurs on March 15 (a Thursday) at 4:00 PM and is titled, “Wiki, Wiki, Wiki . . . Textbook!” i can’t find my notes of what i submitted, so i’ll have to wait and read the description in the conference manual. but i believe i am going to talking about the wiki-based textbook i am writing with others for the ed tech course our preservice educators take here at GVSU and explaining how to set up a wiki for textbook writing — the nuts and bolts, if i am remembering correctly.
i am going to put my agenda and notes into a wiki just like i said i wasn’t ready to do in blog entry just a month ago. doh! my concerns back then were that i feared things would get changed prior to when i used my materials. this time around, i will make a wiki and just keep it private until i present. if someone wants to borrow it or modify after i use it then i’ll have no problem. a win-win, eh?
it’s a bit funny that i am presenting on a wiki-based textbook when i have seriously been considering taking all of my materials thus far and moving them from the wiki and using Drupal instead. i originally liked how the wiki allowed such an ease of connecting various different content together. but, the non-linear navigation inherent in the wiki makes it much more difficult for an instructor to assign readings and for author’s to write a meaningful narrative. there’s something to be said of a linear document and Drupal has a core module called Book. just like a wiki, many users can work together to write and create content. one of the appealing aspects of the Drupal book is the following:
You can also let users generate a printer-friendly display of a book page and all its subsections. They do this by selecting the link for printer-friendly version at the bottom of any book page.
as much as i like to push a paperless classroom, the truth of the matter is that not everyone wants to always get online to read a textbook. some people might want a paper copy that they can highlight and annotate, etc. the Drupal solution would allow students to print the textbook using an online printer like Lulu.com for under $10. it’s not free, but is certainly appealing versus the cost of the average college textbook these days. and this model has no 30% markup by the bookstores.
but, i need to continue my work in the wiki and act enthusiastic at least until after MACUL. ;~)
if you’re going to MACUL, i hope you can stop by and say hello.
March 5th, 2007 at 9:59 am
Glad to hear you’re excited about the conference. A colleague and I were looking through the registration book thinking that your presentation sounded like a good one. The idea of producing your own textbook online (and fully editable using the wiki) is awesome! I haven’t moved that far myself in terms of use of technology, but at least I have started my fourth graders using wikis (they love it) and so far so good, I’m excited about next year.
If you have a chance stop by the MACUL Conference Blog and read up on other going-ons, or pass the word around.
March 6th, 2007 at 12:09 am
nice to hear from you ben. it’s awesome to hear what you’re doing with 4th graders. my oldest is in first grade, but i hope she has good technology using teachers well into her future. i’ve volunteered to do any inservice training and i’ve explained that i’d be around for follow up visits, etc. all for free . . . but i haven’t been taken up on the offer. in any regard, thanks for the link as i am off to check it out now.