Sunday, February 25, 2007

My Next Text Book - Google Notebook

I have seen my next text book and it's Google Notebook. If you are educator using any online resources you need to check this out (run, don't walk to the nearest computer). Google Notebook allows you to create and share "notebooks" - and with the available Firefox extension, it's simple to add content from any Web page (and yes, remind your learners about copyright, intellectual property, attribution, and the Creative Commons licensing types). All content in a notebook can be edited and updated as well. Web 2.0 at its best.

I see using a Google Notebook like this:
  1. Create a notebook, either on a general course title or a specific topic
  2. "Seed" the notebook with whatever required information you see as important for your course
  3. Make the notebook available to your learners, making them responsible for its maintenance
  4. Use the notebook to augment/replace text resources
  5. At the end of the course you have a collaboratively created resources that is much more relevant to your learners than any text book could ever be
There you go - a current, topical, no cost alternative to expensive, heavy, out-of-date text books. I can't wait to try it out...

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hey Ian,
That sounds like an amazing idea. I know it would help me and I can imagine it would enforce self learning and allow students to bring in resources they found helped them with the learning curve on new subjects.