Reflections 3.2 Wikis for Learning

The role of Wikis in Education

Wikis are like a big piece of butcher’s paper on the wall except the wiki page is an electronic document and it can be edited by all members of a group.  Wikis are a more efficient process of editing a document than using an email because part of the important information becomes lodged and or lost in the email.  In my current day job, I am trying to encourage my colleagues to use online documents rather than emails to do group work.  I have tried google docs using a word document to do this and I have tried a word document in drop box and also in Microsoft shared drive.  However, it seems that my work colleagues can never get used to using such tools.  The cynic in me notices that they like being able to ditch information in emails and ignore information contributed by some people and so they prefer to use emails.  So, my reflection on the use of wikis is that sometimes there is more than just using the tool.  Doing group work with students and choosing preferential groups might also help with students being able to use the tool effectively.

My work colleagues also prefer to share word documents via email with track changes on which allows the owner of the document to quickly work out what changes have been made and to either accept or decline those changes.  Whether the wiki or the word document with track changes on fits the task probably depends on the complexity and size of the task. 

Wikis have three main functionalities, they have edit, save and share.  Only one person can edit a wiki at a time so they are an asynchronous tool and this might cause problems if using this tool in a class.  The Google docs and One Drive have similar functionality when members are invited to view the document they can be given viewing or read/write access. 

As a lecturer at the Auckland Uni of Technology, we used wikis for the forming part of group selection for third year projects.  Initially we used to pass around a couple of A4 sheets on clipboards in the lecture for students to sign up for groups.  We always found that the groups would resettle and we would have requests from many of the groups to switch team members.  This process too a long time to happen and some groups were still forming in week 3.  So, we found the wiki a great alternative because the students had a whole week to work out which group they wanted to belong to.  We always had a couple of students who needed assistance through the group forming process, however, they were a much smaller group than when we just had the groups form in the first lecture.  The group forming happened over a couple of days and students were ready to continue with the norming phase by week2.

I liked this example of the use of a wiki including the use of an annotation tool used from Diigo (which is a bookmarking tool) to share ideas in a synchronous manner.  The video suggest that the class enjoys sharing more because everyone gets to have their say and the process is more efficient.

PMI        Plus,  Minus and Interesting for Wikis

P	M	I
Allows each member of the group to have a similar say. Allows many different iterations until it is ‘right’. Can remain as a digital artifact that can be referred back to by any of the group members. Has simple version control.	Allows group members to delete the whole document if they are not competent. Relies on group members being comfortable with the technology. Relies on the group communicating and working together reasonably transparently for it to work.	Is used in this course as a list of members and web spaces and was used in my Uni days as a group forming tool.

(PMI template adopted from Global Education)

The application of the SAMR is more difficult for the wiki and I believe this is due to convergence of the tools and also on the reason for using the wiki. Examples of using a wiki for delivery of content abound, but really useful examples of using a wiki as a classroom tool are more difficult to come by.  This is perhaps because a Wiki like a Blog and a Website are bucket tools.

SAMR example for Wiki use.

Substitution	Augmentation	Modification	Redefinition
Use of a wiki as an A1 sized piece of butcher paper to create a list of items to bring for an activity.	Embedded animations to show the process of creating a double entry accounting problem or solving a number sense problem illustrated with diagram.	Use of a wiki space to pose questions in a geography lesson about another location.  The sister class could respond with photos.	Use of a wiki space to work on a joint scratch program to program a lego Mindstorms robot to solve a navigation problem and to draw on other expert groups from previous years.

(SAMR table template adapted from Technology Is Learning)

 What do you think?

What are some applications of Wikis that you have seen and liked?

 Have you had the same experience of wanting to use a tool such as wiki but finding that your colleagues just want to email?

 What do you think about the convergence of the tool?  Have you found this also?  Is it easier to just use the one tool for a wiki, website and blog?