http://notaland.com
The basics
“Nota is a unique, cutting-edge collaborative web platform that allows users to create, share and collaborate on presentations and virtually any other form of online material. Using Nota’s proprietary toolset, users can instantly integrate text, video, maps, clip art, photos from web album or on the local computer, or license-free images from Flickr, and material from an ever-expanding array of sources. Users can then instantly embed their work in Facebook or blogs, and can share and collaborate with friends. ”
For example:
Creating a notebook in Notaland - note collaboration features
What is intriguing
Notaland is intriguing because it provides opportunities for co-creation of content. Realtime collaboration may well prove to be particularly useful for students studying fully online, so long as they can arrange to be online at the same time.
Pedagogic Challenge
The challenge for students when using web 2.0 applications that are very ‘open’ (ie unstructured) is knowing where to start. Notaland provides a rich set of tools (adding links, content from the web, etc) but not much guidance as to why or how to do it. Therefore, one way of meeting the challenge of using this application would be for a teacher to pre-populate the project space with just enough information to guide students into using it more fully.
Why this tool is not ‘top 10′
Notaland is close to being a great application – there are some features which don’t appear to work all that well, but the general premise is fine. Perhaps it demonstrates how there needs to be clearer separation and structuring at times between the individual contributions of participants and the overall collective output. Notaland could create problems if users were not explicitly attentive to the way their inputs would change the general pool of information used by all. In some ways, Notaland might work better as an individual form of web publishing, especially since the work can be done privately and then shared when it is complete.
Notaland demonstrates how applications can really only be assessed fully through their use and reflection upon that experience. In your hands, Notaland may well be top 10. A recent review of Notaland was very positive.
Alternatives
