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Genevieve Hudak

DLC – HW 18

1. what did you find
1.1. interesting about the article?

What I found interesting about this article that I have found interesting about many of the articles we’ve read is that one point it makes is that our school system is doing things wrong. This comes out when we examine ways we share knowledge. The school system is essentially trying to share and disseminate knowledge, and it too could gain by taking advantage of a knowledge management kind of system.

I think the school system should be reworked so that it is more like a knowledge management system. Here students would be motivated to add to and maintain a knowledge store, as opposed to trying to memorize facts and only doing what is prescribed by homework in order to achieve a (meaningless) grade.

2. what do you consider the main message of the article?

I think the main message of the article is that we have been approaching knowledge management from the wrong perspective, and that if we ever hope for it to work, we need to adjust our perspective to include more collaboration and motivation.

3. there is a section in the article �courses-as-seeds� analyzing an earlier course from a KM perspective. Please analyze briefly our course in a similar fashion against the framework and claims made in the article.

4. analyze the
4.1. strength and

The strength of the Swiki as a computational environment to support KM is that it is fully modifiable by all users, and everyone has the ability to see everyone else’s work.

It is also a central location where everything associated with the course can be stored.

Further, the users of the system impose the organization of it, and this helps out in a knowledge management sense because it is not someone outside organizing it, and leaving the users to deal with the organization given. They are instead allowed to move things around and make it more useful for themselves.

4.2. weakness
of the Swiki as a computational environment to support KM.

The weakness of the Swiki as a computational environment to support KM is that it doesn’t have any particular way of motivating users to participate and contribute. Sure everything is there and accessible, but users are not motivated to do so purely based on the structure of the Swiki. If the content that people post is engaging enough, then users might be more motivated to get involved, and have a discussion.
Another drawback is that not all users use the system at the same time. I have discovered that the best discussions happen when people are continuously tending to the discussion. In a forum structure such as the Swiki, people just “drop by” and check in. They do not all stay logged in, attuning to the ongoing discussion.

I think an idea for improving this would be to have a set discussion time, where anyone interested (or everyone in the class) can log in from wherever they are and have an online discussion about the given topic.

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