Text-based wikis and deep learning

Well, here I am finding myself needing to excuse the long gap between this blog post and the last. Truth is that I have been tied up with a couple of projects that I didn't feel like a could blog about at the time (a job search I was selected as finalist of which ultimately didn't work out but took over my life for a couple of months) and then examining a PhD (which was an absolute pleasure and successful for the candidate - well done Jess). And since then, well, I've been trying and failing to catch up with myself whilst writing an application for a National Teaching Fellowship, revising a paper for a journal, talking at a conference at UCC in Ireland and doing all the 'usual stuff of life' - teaching, administration, trying to stay on the right side of sane.

But in amongst all of this, an email from a friend of mine (Stephen Harlow) has been languishing in my in box. And today I finally got time to open the link to find a very interesting article (Student Engagement in Distance Learning Environments) in First Monday on the use of wikis as means of promoting collaborative discussion of texts (rather than using discussion threads). It seems like a useful idea, and one that I'll be looking to use as I continue to explore the different ways web 2.0 can enhance our learning experiences.