Changing how we learn
kencarroll
October 19, 2009, 12:35 PM posted in General DiscussionHere's a very good article from Venture Beat - 'Web technology is about to change how we learn'. The author, Russell Moench, references us with some positive comments.
Here on ChinesePod, of course, it already has changed how we are all learning.
The article is well worth a read.
chanelle77
October 20, 2009, 01:19 PMNo worries.
Most information remains accessible I believe and in the past only some data was lost when they changed the cms if am am correct. But I think "older" poddies know that better.
I read the article (interesting) and tried to look up more info on the 12 year of research. I have not heard of many online education programs in mid 90's (those were the days when vid chatting was exciting). Interesting research I guess!
henning
October 19, 2009, 01:18 PMBodawei,
there used to be a Wiki on Chinesepod, but after a while it was only full of obsolete, inconsistent or even wrong data that nobody cared for. However it was still available for quite a while.
The CPod experience proves that a multitude of rivaling communication channels does not work.
bodawei
October 19, 2009, 01:38 PM@henning
Thanks very much for that - but I am not as sure as you are that 'a multitude of rivalling communication channels does not work.' Our brain deals with such rivals every day; even small children learn to sift the 'chaff for the corn'.
But the more important question is: what would a wiki compete with here? How do you FIND things in ChinesePod? Maybe I am just really bad at this, but the search function seems to work only on lessons and I find that it is a weak search function. It misses a lot of valuable information.
I am a great fan of ChinesePod - and a fairly frequent user. I often tell people about it and recommend it as the best online service. But I can't say that it is easy to find a discussion you had in even the recent past. Nor have I ever learnt anything much at all from the resources tab (the recent pinyin chart was a valuable addition.) Re. the grammar section; I would not throw away my textbooks. Well, I did because I needed to get rid of things, but you know what I mean? This is where I think a wiki would come into its own - building a body of useful information. Maybe one of the issues here is that it is a very sizeable investment? If not done properly you do get a big pile of misleading information.
But you say it has been tried and it didn't work. I will take your advice seriously - you have been around a while.
kencarroll
October 19, 2009, 02:15 PMActually, from day one we did have a wiki, but as Henning pointed out it was messy. I think the subject is simply too big. I also agree that too many options are potentially confusing to the user. I'm actually thinking avbout how we could simplify things around here.
simonpettersson
October 19, 2009, 12:51 PMGood stuff. I can only agree with the author. Not much to add, but thanks for the link, Ken.
chanelle77
October 19, 2009, 03:06 PMthe issue you mentioned was the reason to start the thread :-) i was looking for comments from changye on reading material (which was hen mafan).
If you cannot find me anymore here and i am burried in digital dust: just give me a call happy to help.
"ask Changye", great name for new show.
bodawei
October 19, 2009, 03:19 PM@chanelle
不好意思， 你的名字我写错了。 Sorry about that, I was on a roll, didn't do any checking.
I am worried about you 'buried in digital dust' .. which raises another question. If you 'move on', subscriptionally speaking, can people still access your body of work? Or do you go to some server in the sky?
simonpettersson
October 19, 2009, 04:45 PMI agree that there is a need for a better way to access the knowledge buried in all of those discussions. However, it seems a bit off topic in this thread. Or maybe there's not much to discuss regarding the article?
bodawei
October 20, 2009, 06:43 AMIf 'better ways of accessing knowledge using Web technology' is off-topic, what is the topic again?
bodawei
October 19, 2009, 02:37 PM'I'm actually thinking avbout how we could simplify things around here.' Sounds very managerial. We should be very afraid. :-)
Forget the wiki, I'm sick of the subject myself. No-one has addressed my question yet: how do you find anything on ChinesePod?
I did a quick empirical exercise: two subjects have been raised by poddies recently (1) reading material (Channelle) and (2) measure words (simonpettersson). I searched for MWs and got two useful QingWens - both in late 2008. I would be surprised if there has not been useful discussion/answers to poddy questions prior to this or in the past year - how would this be accessed? How do we find the useful discussion about Chinese reading material that has accumulated on Channelle's thread? The only way that I can think of is (a) remember that it is Channelle that started the thread; (b) find Channelle - can we search Usernames? (c) do a manual search of her comments.
I reckon there must be a creative solution to this problem (apart from arguing that there is no problem.) My suggestion is to PM the top ten users asking if they remember something.. Are mass PMs possible?
Maybe just ask Changye.
bodawei
October 19, 2009, 12:48 PM@Ken
It is a great endorsement for ChinesePod as you say. Regarding the statement...
'Chinesepod embraces the standard suite of Web tools–podcasts, RSS feeds, blogs, forums, wikis, photos, etc – '
Is there something you have been keeping from us? I have previously raised the question of a wiki - this seems to me to be something that CP does not do. I would welcome a wiki function, I'm not sure about the rest of the community. It seems that much valuable knowledge just goes into the ether..
Any comments?