yahooanswers

Yahoo!Answers

http://answers.yahoo.com/

Description: It is a simple Q & A site launched by Yahoo! In 2005. The interface is easy to use, which allows users to ask questions of other users and answer other users' questions. The asker can rate and choose the best answer from all posted answers by other users. And the user who provided the best answer will get points. So it gives members the chance to earn points as a way to encourage participation. It is also okay to drop links as long as you're providing a helpful answer to someone's question. Yahoo! Answers allows users to find answers more efficiently. The answers are straightforward since all those information and answers have already been researched and made by other people. Therefore, those answers are not just limited to books, encyclopedia, but also the sharing of people’s knowledge from real life experiences.



Insights: (For our group project, one of the goals is to enhance student’s collective learning system) -Yahoo! Answer is a good approach for encouraging and provoking students asking and answering questions. They can earn points if their answers have been rated the top. The higher the points they can get, more benefits they will have. -It works as medium for sharing student’s knowledge. It will also reflect the educational achievements of one institution. -It is a useful tool that can be used in FAQ section for class discussion. -Students can find information more quickly and completley, since those information are already been made and reserached by the answerers. For example, instead of googling each uncertain website one by one, we can easily find a list of all the useful websites just on one single page organized by the answerers.