What is a Wiki?
Wikis are web applications that allow anyone with web access to add, delete, edit, and remove text and content to a site, or an "online collaborative writing tool" (West & West, 2009, p. 3). The first one was created by Ward Cunningham in 1995, called WikiWikiWeb, while the most well-known is an online free encyclopedia called Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org) (West & West, 2009, p. 3).
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| Ward Cunningham |
Wikipedia
The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.
What are the Pros and Cons of Wikis for Adult Learners?
Some of the best aspects of using Wikis in adult education are that students are able to work in groups, in a collaborative fashion, but "in an asynchronous manner" (West & West, 2009, p. 5). With such collaboration among students from the entire class, "the wiki opens the door to brainstorming, group problem-solving, critical evaluation, synthesis, idea refinement, and group consensus" (West & West, 2009, p. 5). It allows for more dynamic communication and added creativity amongst the group because multimedia is supported.
The downside to Wikis are that since it is open for editing by multiple users, this could lead to misinformation being spread. In addition, there is certainly a learning curve to composing and contributing to a Wiki, especially for those unfamiliar with the technology. Another suggested con by an article from Educause Learning Initiative (2005) is "that a wiki represents the collective perspective of the group that uses it, and therefore has a collective bias" (King & Cox, 2011, p. 123).
Should we use them?
I say, of course!!! I have had the pleasure of working on a Wiki project in two prior courses here at Kansas State. The first was certainly interesting given that I had never used a Wiki before. However, once started, and with patience in learning how to format the multimedia the way I wanted it, it became an excellent tool for collaboration. Most convenient for me was the fact our groups could work on the project in an asynchronous manner. All of our schedules are very hectic and having that freedom to learn and work on our own time was crucial. The collaboration itself was also wonderful for my learning. As one group member added one picture or statement, that would trigger an idea in my mind to add to our project, and this same flow continued throughout the group. With anything there are downsides, but I believe that just reminding students that Wikis are public (some are private to a password-protected specific group, but still viewable by that group) so they need to remain professional and ethical with their creations. Wikis, to me, are great learning opportunities!
References
Educause Learning Initiative (2005, July). Wikis. Retrieved January 5, 2010 from http://www.educause.edu/eli
King, K.P. & Cox, T.D. (2011). The Professor's Guide to Taming Technology. USA: Information Age Publishing.
West, J.A. & West, M.L. (2009). Using Wikis for Online Collaboration: The Power of the Read-Write Web. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
I got the impression that there were a lot of private wikis out there as well (Lari, 2011; West & West, 2009). Are there private wikis available for viewing, but not editing? Did I miss this in the text somewhere? I agree with you that anything asynchronous in online learning is great!
ReplyDeleteI have never put together a wiki with more than one other person. I am interested to see how a small group works together in comparison to partners. I can already see that you have to get more people to agree upon things (Collin & Heaney, 2001; Boulos & Wheeler, 2007). I am also learning that our styles are very different and we need to achieve some sort of harmony/agreement for the styles to work together.
Boulos, M. N. K., & Wheeler, S. (2007). The emerging Web 2.0 social software: An enabling suite of sociable technologies in health and healthcare education. Health Information and Libraries Journal, 24 (1), 2-23.
Collin, S. A. J. & Heaney, T. W. (2001). Negotiating the democratic classroom. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, (91), 29-37.
Lari, P. (2011). The use of wikis for collaboration in higher education. In K. P. King & T. D. Cox (Eds.), The professor’s guide to taming technology (pp. 89-104). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, Inc.
I agree, Janel. When your learning styles are different, it can create a more unique experience with creating a Wiki. However, I see it as more of a positive effect as the Wiki benefits from having various viewpoints and styles added to the page. For those who are more visual, they may add charts and diagrams that get the learning points across, whereas those who are more auditory-learners may find videos, etc to contribute. I think once you get past the troubles of learning the technology itself, creating a Wiki is a great learning experience for everyone involved.
ReplyDeleteHi Kayla,
ReplyDeleteGreat job on your blog, very visually appealing! From your comments regarding Wikis, it is obvious you are a fan of this technology (me too). Because of your positive experiences with Wiki as a learner, do you see yourself incorporating Wikis professionally? Our reading this week suggested many other uses for wikis such as brainstorming pages, learner information pages, portfolios, and even debate/polling pages; how might you incorporate Wikis in the future? Can you see Wikis being beneficial used in any other ways?
Hi Kayla:
ReplyDeleteI am not in your blog group this week, but I thought it was so cool that you posted a picture of Ward Cunningham. That was such a nice informative touch. Good job!!!!