AN ONLINE COLLABORATIVE TOOL FOR SOCIAL SCIENCES TEACHERS sociopages

Menu Introduction Aims and Objectives What is a wiki? Why wikis? How to use sociopages? Questions

Introduction

What is sociopages? A website – A wiki Online support for a project headed by Om Varma, Associate Professor, Education Studies Department Set up by the Centre for Open and Distance Learning of the MIE

Aims & Objectives

Aims To write a Sociology 'O' level textbook and make it accessible free online To conduct a research on teaching Sociology in Mauritian Secondary Schools

Objectives To engage teachers to write, pilot and produce an online textbook for 'O' level Sociology. To provide a content familiar to Mauritian students, with examples and research relevant to Mauritius, Africa and the developing societies. To provide free access to all teachers and students to all the materials published. To provide hints for teaching so as to facilitate the use of the materials.

WHAT IS A WIKI CHARACTERISTICS OF A WIKI FEATURES OF A WIKI EXAMPLES OF WIKIS What is a wiki?

Website that allows a group of people to create and edit the website contents without any special technical knowledge or tools. History “wiki wiki” = Hawaiian for quick or fast Ward Cunningham is the man behind the very first wiki, described it as "the simplest online database that could possibly work” (Nations, 2009, p. 1)

Characteristics of a wiki “A wiki invites all users to edit any page or to create new pages within the wiki Web site, using only a plain- vanilla Web browser without any extra add-ons.” “Wiki promotes meaningful topic associations between different pages by making page link creation almost intuitively easy and showing whether an intended target page exists or not.” “A wiki is not a carefully crafted site for casual visitors. Instead, it seeks to involve the visitor in an ongoing process of creation and collaboration that constantly changes the Web site landscape.”

Features of a wiki  Easy to use  Can be used any time, any where  Keeps track of revision history and who has made changes  Can be set to be public or private  Is constantly under construction  Collaboration is key

Examples of wikis

WHY WIKIS WEB 2.0 WEB 2.0 & LEARNING ESSENTIAL SKILLS FOR 21 ST CENTURY WORKPLACE Why wikis?

Perhaps the question is not ‘why’ but ‘why now?’ Tipping points  Socio-technical and Cultural changes  Web 2.0  Fundamental change in the way people use web technologies  Implications for Educators  Social Nature of Learning  Social constructivism  Situated learning  Collaboration, community and learning

Web 2.0

Web 2.0 and learning Content and assessment driven [VLE’s] Reusable learning objects Standards [Learning Management Systems] Digital repositories Collaborative Collective Intelligence

Essential Skills for 21 st Century Workplace  Create  Communicate  Collaborate  Manage & evaluate online information

WIKISPACES WELCOME TO SOCIOPAGES HANDS ON! How to use sociopages

Wikispaces Built on Wikispaces – a wiki service  Other wiki servers are Wetpaint, wikidot Labels and Pricing Setting up your own wiki

Welcome to sociopages

Lets have a hands on session!

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