I recently took a look at WePapers online. I was intrigued by the site's tagline, "Creating the World's Biggest Study Group" because two of the biggest needs of students today revolve around the need to feel they can master a topic (or they will not engage with it), and the need for community (to overcome challenges).
The site is wonderfully fast and easy. It can take less than a minute to get involved with specific content.
- Categorical index is placed right on the home page
- Search is fast, and it returns relevant results
- Like YouTube, additional content is displayed to learners adjacent to the media being viewed
The tradeoff for the quick and easy platform, comes in the kind of low-end delivery of content, but it's enough! There doesn't seem to be a lot of script rolling on these pages, which is good. Not only is the site easy to understand and navigate, but the pages load quickly. However, the actual e-learning, as you can see above, isn't quite as robust as some more high-end online learning interfaces. For me, that's perfectly fine. Its a fair trade, in my opinion.
The only major downfall, currently is the amount of content. WePapers depends upon users for the actual learning content. It's a wonderfully-designed platform, but the content is exclusively user-generated. So the actual learning is only as good as the This site is still in its beta phase, which means it doesn't have many users. Subsequently, the depth and breath of content just isn't there...yet.
An ideal use for this site will be for educators, to source content and display it within their learning environments for their students. This way, the content can be validated, and educators can know that all their students are getting the same base of information. Ambitious students will have the ability to continue their learning by doing their own search within this tool. These students, along with educators could also contribute to this site by uploading their own content, further building the community.
Don't take my word for it, take a look at the site, and share your thoughts. Below is a view of one of the lessons, on the Geometry of Circles. Enjoy!
documentinfo.aspx?id=78887
Image used by permission, Jupiter Images, Inc.
No comments:
Post a Comment