On my radar and pinging more loudly after a brief chat about it with Brian Lamb at EDUCAUSE: Feedbook. Imagine a textbook made up of experts in conversation throughout the blogosphere and WWW generally. One that continues to provide opportunities for serendipitous moments throughout the semester … and travels with students after the term ends, still talking to them and inviting their own responses. I’m thinking that college is now the opportunity not only to begin one’s personal library, but also to build one’s personal suite of trusted and inspiring experts. That of course is what already happens to some extent, but now it need not be confined to the campus. The campus is where the beloved local professor simply starts the ball rolling.
Come to think of it, that’s pretty much the mission, or at least the heart of it.
And how was I reminded of Feedbook, with my head all crammed with EDUCAUSE, Milton, and UMW goodness? By seeing it in Brian Lamb’s Furl list on his blogsite. Time to get my own del.icio.us feed back on my site. Crucial miniblogging add-on, that.
Feel free to drop in at feedbook.org and contribute to the wiki… I’d love to get resources ready for not-so-savvy-yet teachers to be able to plug and play their own feedbooks…
I noticed this link on Brian’s del.icio.us feed too, and I thought it sounded intriguing.
I could see a Bloglines account right now being used this way for a course–which would be nice because you could make use of the clipping tool as well.
Or, the instructor could distribute an OPML file at the beginning of the course, each student could upload it into their own Bloglines account, and then use the built in Blog tool in Bloglines as their attached “notebook” to the Feedbook.
The possibilites are intriguing.
It was Scott Wilson who initially put this bug in my ear, in the context of portfolios:
http://www.cetis.ac.uk/members/scott/entries/20050603020705
“An e-Portfolio is, by definition, an aggregate or composite of many facets. We can look at this quite literally as an e-portfolio being aggregated from multiple feeds, each of which supplies items about a particular aspect of the subject. By combining this set of feeds, we end up with a composite view, that can be used as the basis for a personal profile using FOAF, or to create weblog entries with a reflective purpose.”
Very interesting reflections here. In the midst of my mulling, I recognize that we’re discussing a “textbook” so dynamic that it blurs the line between class reference, class reflection, and class production. The feedbook would be all three, with a meta-layer possible as well if we were to ask students to modify or augment the feedbook as part of the class work.
Now I need to get my head around FOAF.
You really do like to “mull” don’t ya? (Sorry, but I did love that nightcap podcast.)
I need to get my head around FOAF as well. ELGG.net seems to get it.
Thinking about this stuff reminded me of my favorite student submission that I received last year. I’m going to use it at Bryan’s shindig today, and must blog it on my own space too:
http://etec540.olt.ubc.ca/Sept04/kellym/majorproject/
Man, are you a posting fiend right now. Yummy.
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