I attended Paula White’s session entitled

Parallel Play or Collaboration–Leveraging the Wiki Platform for High Quality Work.

Her main points were using wikis to appeal to student engagement in their own learning. To this end, she referenced Bloom’s taxonomy and other learning schedules to coordinate wikis with purposeful learning steps.  She began with the proven practice that wikis engage students, but she went deeper than that initial engagement and argued that for students to stay motivated then they need to see the need for the wiki.  They need to experience choice, novelty, variety and authenticity in their wikis.  She concluded that students experience true collaboration and engagement when they share the creation of something that serves a real purpose for their lives and learning.

The session was worthwhile as a motivational philosophy behind wiki use.  I was hoping for more practical uses; for the presenter to model activities that do in fact promote student collaboration.  I will take away the idea that wikis need to be designed with student collaboration in mind.  I want students to share in the learning and value the research and ideas of their peers.

I liked the medium of an online course as a way to get conference content.  I did miss the buzz of the networking that occurs at conferences, but as far as filling one’s tote bag with ideas and notes, it is even easier to do that online and much less expensive for schools.