A new tool – exploring the potential of Google SideWiki
Posted by shanetechteach on September 27, 2009
In the last couple of days Google launched a new service that could increase my the fan boy within me. The service is Google SideWiki and the simplest explanation is a web page annotation tool. At first glance it seems very similar to the functionality of Diigo, my preferred social bookmarking solution.
To use SideWiki you need to install the browser toolbar, at least this is the easiest way. Plus you need a google profile so if you have a Gmail, Google Reader aor Google Calendar then you are already in their system. SideWiki also sports highlighting tools that work similar to tools in Diigo. This service has the potential for use in my practice as it would eliminate my learner’s needs for one online account. They already have google accounts for Calendar and Reader, so this functionality of SideWiki would neagte the need for a Diigo account. Unfortunate for Diigo.
When I installed the browser toolbar, I noticed a button titled “Bookmarks.” Never even knew they existed, but the bookmarking is private and therefore of no use to me. So I will keep my Diigo account, which automatically exports to Delicious where students (or anyone) can search my bookmarks and I can generate RSS feeds fro import into learner Google Reader accounts or my BlackBoard virtual classrooms.
One thing that does worry me about SideWiki is the potential mess of comments and annotations for a web page. When you load the sidewiki for a page you’ll see what Google determines is the most relevant comments. However there is function to search comments so if I want learner’s to respond to my comments they will search for my username. But this means sidewiki may not be the place for my learners’ to post a response. A great tool though to assist in organisation of their research.
So at this early stage I believe Google SideWiki will become part of my teaching toolkit. I look forward to further exploration of its potential.
September 27th, 2009 at 6:45 am
I find it hard to imagine how sidewiki can be effectively used as an education tool. It’s not a research too and work cannot be kept private. It is a glorified commenting system that isn’t moderated and is therefore open to abuse. Who know what kinds of comments children will see when accessing the web with a sidewiki enabled browser. A better option is http://www.icyte.com – it’s free and does everything you could possibly want in a research tool.
September 27th, 2009 at 8:10 pm
Leanne, I appreciate your feedback on this post. I understand your concerns and do share some concern about the unmoderated aspect of comments. iCyte and Diigo are more protected systems that would restrict learners seeing the comments of people approved of as friends already. However I see it as a duty to educate on digital citizenship and how to critically analyse commentary. They experience this in any public publishing service such as YouTube, MySpace, Flickr, etc etc. I also see that there is as much chance my learners’ will encounter a relevant and insightful commentary by a valid and qualified professional. Why should the only comments they see be from people I tell them are valid? Why not allow them to determine valid commentary independently, enabled by appropriate education on digital citizenship.
I’d be interested in reading further on your thoughts.
September 30th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
I think there are two different issues at play. The first has to do with evaluating web-based commentary, and the second as to do with actual tools that can support research.
I do appreciate your willingness as an educator, to teach students about the importance of critically evaluating and responding to web-based commentary. Educating them to think about the kinds of comments that people make, and encouraging them to by thoughtful about the validity of any comments is a worthy enterprise. And yes, teaching them to do this independently of what you recommend or allow them to read is a good thing. They certainly need these skills as they negotiate Facebook, YouTube etc.
However, it seems to me that a good deal of web-based commentary is social in it’s orientation. While I am not dismissing social networks out of hand, I think they generally offer less value in that it is harder to find insightful and relevant commentary, especially by qualified professionals. I say this mindful that over time this will probably change as people eventually become adept at using the web outside the social networks. Maybe sidewiki can be of some value in this area. However I am yet to be convinced and I haven’t seen much to persuades me otherwise. This aside, the issue remains that an un-moderated commenting system does have the potential for great harm. I worry that those advocating sidewiki as a mechanism for free speech do so at the cost of social responsibility.
However this is a essentially a criticism of content. And regarless of how the content of sidewiki is evaluated, I just don’t think it has the sophistication (or back-end grunt) to make it a contender for serious web-based research. Here I am not talking about teaching kids to critically evaluate comments, but rather thinking about the kinds of tools kids (or any of us) need to develop good research skills.
The kinds of things that I think of as being important in a web-based research tool include the following:
*Ability to create ‘projects’ in which to locate specific research projects. This is the first layer in organizing data in a meaningful way.
*Projects should have the capacity to be either public or private. The results of public projects are available for everyone, private projects are limited to those invited to join that specific project.
*Collaboration is essential, and being able to work as a group must be a fundamental requirement for any web based research tool
*The data has to be saved. Programs that only save the url are as ineffective as bookmarks. Those that only save the marked text are also of limited value. What is required is a program that saves (and indexes) the whole page. iCyte, as far as I know, is the only tool that does this.
*Further levels of categorization are essential. Being able to add searchable tags to marked text, as well as freeform notes, gives students the capacity to make very sophisticated evaluations of what ever text they are working on.
*Being able to retrieve data is critical, by which I mean a powerful search engine.
*Other additions like importing data to word, and RSS feeds also have significant vale. I can imagine that as a teacher, being updated when students add to their projects (or the other way around) would be very valuable.
*Ease of use is also important. Sometimes functionality comes at the cost of an intuitive user inter-face.
I’ve been using iCyte personally for some time. I am tertiary educator and a writer, and it meets all of my needs for the personal research I do. More recently I have been using it to assist my daughter in a high school project, web-based research on significant supreme court cases. While I appreciated the school encouraging kids to research on-line, it frustrated me that they didn’t give them any tools. Whole forests have been felled because students (and others) simply resort to printing search results. And as for pasting into word…it just doesn’t work. Aside from being messy and time-consuming, it also tends to encourage plagiarism.
So in conclusion to what is a rather long response, I remain skeptical about the value of the content that sidewiki is likely to generate, and totally unconvinced about it’s value as a tool that can support good research methodology.
September 30th, 2009 at 9:53 pm
Leanne, thank you for such a detailed and informed response. I certainly agree with what you are saying, and perhaps my perception of a tool for research differs from yours. Your explanation of iCyte sounds very similar to Zotero, a FireFox add on that I have my students use to collect research. iCyte seems to have significant advantages including the RSS which will now result in me taking a much closer look. My purpose for sidewiki is firstly to post stimulus tasks on websites that my students can view as they have google profiles also. This then also allows them to leave notes in the sidewiki that they can find when they return. The notebook function within Zotero is utliised for extensive notes and student work.
I can understand your frustration with an education system (or educators) requiring your daughter to research but not teaching her how or supplying appropriate tools, but your response to my post will at least ensure my learners are more prepared for online research. I am still keen to use Google sidewiki to assist in the organisation of research, but it was never intended to be the main tool.
October 1st, 2009 at 6:05 am
Thanks for the response. I’ve also enjoyed looking around your blog more generally. Great to know there is someone taking education in and of the digital media seriously. By the way, I’m impressed your students can use Zotero. I’ve played with it a bit and I like that it pulls out bibliographical data. But I don’t find it straightforward to use. I’m hopeful that in the near future iCyte will also be able to pull out references. Even without that feature, I like that I can use one tool to bookmark, save, annotate and organize all of my web wanderings and research.
October 1st, 2009 at 12:52 pm
No problems. I was intrigued by your url – very clever!! I’ve had a closer look into iCyte. Will take the time to compare it with Zotero and hopefully develop a system that will be easy for my learners to use (and this includes my staff whom I am guiding on a journey)