Where exactly are the cart and the horse?

Hey, I am guilty of not contributing through the Wiki that Robert set up for us. (It was Robert who did that, right?) Maybe because I am just too damn comfy in my blog mode :-)

But, am amazed at how rapidly things like Wikis are diffusing through society, and with the different examples. The example below has political shades and, therefore, am a tad hesitant. So, first a disclaimer: I do not belong to the groups listed on the website that I am going to refer to, nor am I registered with any political party for that matter. I am just a nutcase who reads anything--even the info on the cereal box!

Ok, now the example .... I am kind of following the evolution of the stimulus plan because of my interests in policies. One blogger notes:

hop to Read the Stimulus and insert comments directly into the bill's text. Their motto "$850 Billion, 334 pages, and counting... somebody needs to read it!" But, of course, the best part about these sites is that no one person has to read the whole thing.

It is fascinating. Even a couple of years ago, it would have been impossible for real-time commenting from citizens. And now, real time discussions with distributed intelligence.

From a pedagogical perspective, I wish I could do such things in an online class. However, even if I am all set to do it, well, I will have to teach students on how to engage in such discussions and analysis before we can get to the real discussions and analysis. So, it frustrates me as a teacher that there are such fantastic tools like Wiki out there but that I am not able to put them to use. I am now all the more jealous of the history project demonstration that we watched at the conference.

Even the blogging I tried out last term was only partially successful. Granted they were freshmen and sophomores, but .... the best that some could do was inserting a hyperlink into their posts. I could not achieve what we hope for in these contexts: discussions, referencing through hyperlinking, commenting on other posts, ..... I am like many faculty who think that this ought to happen quite naturally, but it does not. And a ten-week term is too short a time for me to spend teaching students these skills, at the risk of not having time for content matter ....

Which is when I sometimes wonder whether the cart is way before the horse!