http://wikicards.net
The basics
Wikicards is an example of the new way in which the web is working: using more advanced code-based HTML5 (which means it will not work in some browsers!), Wikicards allows organisation of a collection of information based on the idea of ‘cards’, which can be kept private or shared or otherwise distributed, or both! Cards are arranged into projects which provide structure to the information. The site is strongly oriented towards quick, text-based jotting of information which a user wants to keep track of. There are useful aspects: exporting to database applications, updating by phone applications, and the sharing / collaborative features are very handy. Metadata can be attached to each card.
As the site says: “The software lets you create a set of cards. A card is one piece of data, that contains at first only a title and a description. Later on you can attach a document or an image to it. Each card can be also extended with additional fields. Fields are labled values that can be either a text, a date, a number or a user. Once you have the cards, you can organize them in groups or apply tags to them. Once a card is not needed it can be moved over to an archive.”
Wikicards looks like this:
A sample of the wikicards interface and usage
What needs to be explored
Wikicards has one significant advantage over many other organiser-type websites and services. It is freeform – there’s no specific purpose to which it is designed. For example, it can be used as a photo gallery, or a contacts list, or a to-do list, or a data base of references. While there are other specific-purpose applications and services that perform these functions, perhaps wikicards works better because it is more flexible and malleable.
Assuming students can access the service (because they need an uptodate browser and there may be some technical hitches), it would be interesting to see what they themselves made of it. It could be provided to students as the basis for individual work which is then shared with a teacher for assessment. So, the exploration here would be of students’ use of this application for knowledge organisation and creativity: teachers could then learn from that exploration for future courses and teaching experiences.
Pedagogic Challenge
Many Web 2.0 applications are designed, in large measure, as a reflection of the needs and wants of their creators: the pedagogic challenge is how might a simple, collaborative ‘information organiser’ be repurposed for educational advantage. Doing this with Wikicards might involve the creation, by the lecturer, of empty projects (that is, projects whose purpose and structure is established and explicit but which have no content) which are then ‘filled in’ by students, either individually, in groups or all together. A key part of the challenge would be for students to come to grips with the idea of communicating with one another via information objects. Wikicards is not a forum or discussion group: groups can communicate… but by sharing information. This sort of conversation is at the hear of knowledge networking but runs counter to assumptions common to most people about the distinction between information and communication (one is between self and knowledge; the other is between self and others).
Alternatives
None that use the sophistication ‘application’ approach to this sort of website. A wiki could, in fact, be used. Note that wikis are genuinely ‘read-write’ web – like writing directly to the web. Wikicards, despite the name, feels more like a shared application space. You don’t feel like you are using the web at all.
