Web 2.0 Semantic Systems: Collaborative Learning in Science

Abstract

Bot 2.0 is a collaboration involving the North Carolina Botanical Garden, the UNC SILS Metadata Research center, and the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI). Bot 2.0 presents a curriculum utilizing a memex as a way for students to link and share digital information, working asynchronously in an environment beyond the traditional classroom. Our conception of a memex is not a centralized black box but rather a flexible, distributed framework that uses the most salient and easiest-to-use collaborative platforms (e.g., Facebook, Flickr, wiki and blog technology) for personal information management. By meeting students “where they live” digitally, we hope to attract students to the study of botanical science. A key aspect is to teach students scientific terminology and about the value of metadata, an inherent function in several of the technologies and in the instructional approach we are utilizing. This poster will report on a study examining metadata use and comprehension of students from four U.S. post-secondary institutions. Our data is drawn from a plant identification curriculum involving an independent learning portion and a "BotCamp" weekend on the UNC campus.