To Wiki or Not to Wiki...

Collaboration


To Wiki or Not to Wiki...

 

When I was obtaining my undergraduate degree, the only wiki I knew of was Wikipedia. I can hear my professors echoing "be mindful of using Wikipedia, "often questioning its content accuracy. However, in recent years wikis have been used in higher education to aid students in experiencing more in-depth knowledge by incorporating their own experiences into these new learning opportunities. (Chen et al., 2005) Like blogs and discussion boards, wikis are all asynchronous communication (West & West, 2009). They can be designed to share ideas providing feedback, and generate conversation around a particular topic. 

  

There are advantages of utilizing wiki for teaching and learning. A significant appeal of Wikis is that collaborative content can be created, changed, and tracked easily. Users can quickly expand any page or site for discussion, posting assignments, and various collaborative projects. Wiki technology makes it easy to work on a joint document, track work in progress, and see how much each an individual in a group has contributed (Andrew, 2008). 

 

With limited knowledge of utilizing wiki, I found it reassuring that wiki is comparable with Google Docs.  Google Docs includes a mighty page editor compared to many other wikis; Google Docs allows learners to create pages offline using Microsoft Office products, including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Users can upload the documents directly into the wiki. (West & West, 2009)

 

Despite the potential benefits of using a wiki, teachers and learners might have to face challenges. The instructor and students must be willing to accept the risks involved in working in a collaborative environment (Lamb, 2004) regarding time, limited technical support, and possible plagiarism. Wikis for course assignments, grading of Wiki assignments can pose a challenge to instructors. With new types of customized Web learning environments, it is necessary to determine if these environments meet learners' needs. Keeping student concerns in mind, a Wiki rubric should set clear performance expectations and consider both the process and product used by team members to develop the final deliverable assignment. (Hazari. North. Moreland.,2009)

 

Although blogs and discussion boards have similarities to the wiki, a wiki's overall purpose is to support building a shared understanding of a topic, goal, or objective, support planning, research, and create team outcomes through a shared document. Wikis are best suited for collaboration providing flexibility for students who must work together to develop group projects. (West & West, 2009)


I look forward to normalizing wiki utilization and entering an environment where knowledge is shared, dialogue occurs, and the community formed. 




Reference

Andrew, T. (2008), "Teaching with Web 2.0: Benefits Interactive Web Technology brings To Education." Retrieved September 22 2008 from http : //teachingtechnology . suite 101. com/article.cfm/teaching_with_web_20

 

Chen, H. L., Cannon, D. Gabrio, J., Leifer, L., Toye, G., & Bailey, Y. (2005). Using wikis and weblogs to support reflective learning in an introductory enginnering design course. Proceedings of the 2005 American Society fo Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition. Portland, OR.

 

Hazari, S., North, A., & Moreland, D. (2009). Investigating pedagogical value of wiki technology. Journal of Information Systems Education, 20(2), 187-198. Retrieved from https://er.lib.k-state.edu/login?url=https://www-proquest-com.er.lib.k-state.edu/docview/200157232?accountid=11789

 

 Lamb, B. (2004), "Wide Open Spaces: Wikis, Ready or Not." EDUCAUSE Review, Vol. 39, No. 6, pp. 36-48. Retrieved July 29, 2008 from http:// www.educause.edu/pub/er/erm04/erm0452 . asp?bhcp= 1

 

West, J. A., & West, M. L. (2009). Getting Ready to Wiki. In Using wikis for online collaboration: The power of the read-write web (pp. 1-19). San Francisco, CA, CA: Jossey-Bass.

 

 

 

 

 

 


Comments

  1. TBuckSeptember 9, 2020 at 7:50 PM

    https://www.bing.com/videos/search?view=detail&mid=BB71BB782F058D9C3A4FBB71BB782F058D9C3A4F&shtp=GetUrl&shid=e7d0c043-6aa9-4460-8efe-a3d9fed02a95&shtk=TWFraW5nIGEgQmV0dGVyIFdpa2lwZWRpYSAoVGhlIElubm92YXRvcnMp&shdk=TWF0dGhldyBWZXR0ZXIgaXMgYW4gYXNzaXN0YW50IHByb2Zlc3NvciBvZiBFbmdsaXNoIHdobyBzdHVkaWVzIFdpa2lwZWRpYSBhbmQgdXNlcyBpdCBpbiBoaXMgY2xhc3Nyb29tLiBIZWI%3D&shhk=MwqfOGjjQDDMwM1FEf%2Bs3No9C%2Fxw0vFgRgjBjb6yH9U%3D&form=VDSHOT&shth=OSH.CS2NUVP%252B%252BEdupc8pjclRhA

    Catt,
    As you stated above, a wiki is a "collaborative web space where anyone can add content and anyone can edit content that has already been published" (Richardson, 2006, p.8). My current group members are in different time zones. The Wiki allows us to work on the project at any time. I don't have to wait for the file to be sent to me. It is easy to track each person’s contributions and to maintain a record of all changes and edits (Waters, 2007). Have you used Wiki as a writing assignment vs technology based? I was amazed to learn that most Wikis are edited by males. This presents a content gap. It will be interesting to read the Wiki projects that did not have a male's presence. Until the above video, I hadn’t considered how gender plays a role in creating and editing Wikis.

    Richardson, W. (2006). Blogs, wikis, podcasts and other powerful Web tools for classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
    Waters, J. (2007, March). Curriculum unbound! T.H.E. Journal, pp. 40-48.

    ReplyDelete
  2. CattEyeSeptember 10, 2020 at 7:25 PM

    Hi TBuck,
    I have not had the opportunity to use a wiki as a writing assignment; this is my first time learning about wikis and utilizing wiki for a collaborative project.

    Thank you for sharing this video and incite. I work at an all women's college and currently co-planning a national Women in STEM Panel; we collect statistics about the lack of women representation in these fields. Women make up half of the total U.S. college-educated workforce, but only 28% of the science and engineering workforce(National Girls Collaborative, 2020). The disproportion of men to women that edit Wikipedia is astonishing. According to the video, I was not aware that 85%-90% of people who edit Wikipedia are male. Due to the editorial demographic of Wikipedia, topics can be marginalized. Suppose professors insist on using wikis as a collaborative exercise. In that case, educators must be informed on the content gap and encourage participation and the gender gap's importance in utilizing wikis.

    National Girls Collaborative. (2020). Statistics. Retrieved September 11, 2020, from https://ngcproject.org/statistics

    ReplyDelete
  3. J. Masters, MA, RVTSeptember 13, 2020 at 8:25 PM

    Hi Catt,
    I love the design of your blog!
    I also really enjoyed reading your blog article on this topic.
    I thought when I started this week that I never had any experience with wikis but was happy to realize that I did have some experience. I have utilized Google Docs at work for the last couple of years and it has been a saving grace since our department went remote this past March. I honestly don't know that I have completely wrapped my head around the whole wiki thing yet, though. It will be interesting to see how this group project goes. The universities that I completed my bachelor's and master's degrees at never utilized wikis, and only mentioned them in regards to we were never allowed to use Wikipedia for references! ;) Beyond the use of group collaboration in education, I am not really convinced that this will be a tool that I will integrate into my course development goals.
    Thanks,
    Jennifer

    ReplyDelete
  4. Blogging TarantulaSeptember 13, 2020 at 9:33 PM

    I like that you compared using Wikis to using shared Google documents. I hadn’t made the connection between the two. In both instances, collaborators can create and edit the document in a collaborative way and they both create great spaces for group projects. As stated in King and Cox (2011), education and learning are social methodologies and using Wikis is an innovative way to enhance that shared experience and learning process (King and Cox 2011, p 121-134). These are user friendly technologies that allow anyone to access and comment on the topic, thus increasing the sense of community and social learning

    Augar, Naomi, Raitman, Ruth and Zhou, Wanlei 2004, Teaching and learning online with wikis, in Beyond the comfort zone : proceedings of the 21st ASCILITE Conference, Perth, 5-8 December, ASCILITE, {Perth, W.A.], pp. 95-104.
    King, K. P., & Cox, T. D. (2011). The Professor’s Guide to Taming Technology: Leveraging Digital Media, Web 2.0 and More for Learning (Innovative Perspectives of Higher Education: Research, Theory and Practice) (1st ed.). Information Age Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1002/nha3.20064

    ReplyDelete

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