Blog #5 - Wikis

Aloha! I love the sea, I love the sand, I love the salty air and I LOVE relaxing on ‘island time!’ But what on earth does Hawaii have to do with web 2.0 technologies? One word should clarify things for you: “wiki.” Wiki? “Wiki” (pronounced [ˈwiki] or [ˈviki]) is a Hawaiian word for fast (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki). So what exactly is a wiki? According to Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org/), the free encyclopedia, a wiki is “a website that uses wiki software, allowing the easy creation and editing of any number of interlinked Web pages, using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor, within the browser. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites, to power community websites, for personal note taking, in corporate intranets, and in knowledge management systems” (Wikipedia – wiki, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki). Here is a checklist from Julia Davies and Guy Mercahant (2009, www.peterlang.com/index.cfm?vID=310264&vLang=E&vHR=1&vUR=2&vUUR=1) that further explains what a wiki is and how they function:
The text can be edited by anyone who is registered on the site
- Individuals who set up the site can set out specific rubric, guidelines and community values for others to follow
- Authorship is shared and distributed
- Editing discussions and histories can be archived and consulted
- Openness is valued
- Collaboration is valued and individualism is less valued
- Wikis are in a constant state of flux
- Text can easily incorporate links to other sites, to entries on its own site and to profiles of contributors
- Referencing is highly valued
- Incorporation of texts and items from other sites is endorsed – as long as legally adopted and sources are cited

Now, if you’re still confused, try visiting Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org/). After all, it IS a wiki and while you’re there why don’t you try participating in the site?!? Of course, you could just follow me on my journey as I reflect on using Wikispaces (http://www.wikispaces.com/) and share how this web 2.0 technology has impacted me personally and professionally.

Reflections on learning to use Wikispaces

Wikispaces is another free web 2.0 technology that is fairly straightforward to use. Similar to Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/) the site takes you through a step-by-step process when you begin. This process is very helpful and it remains available for future reference. In particular, I found the “tours” (http://www.wikispaces.com/site/tour#introduction) to provide a clear visual of how to learn the basics. Although setting up my wiki - Where-We-Learn (http://where-we-learn.wikispaces.com/) - was easy, I did refer to the “tours” more than once. Within a couple of hours, I was able to create a wiki with multiple pages and tags; upload multiple items (a Pixton comic - http://www.pixton.com/, YouTube video - http://www.youtube.com/ and survey - http://www.surveygizmo.com/); adjust the template and colour scheme; and confirm my privacy settings. Wikispaces is currently offering free wikis for educators, which are advertisement free and provide a secure environment for students. I signed up for this special service and was pleased to discover that I can easily have my students join without having them register with an e-mail address.

There are many useful and interesting features located in the “manage wiki” section that really allowed me to have control over my Wikispace. The “content” section allows you to organize your files, tags and pages, while the “people” section allows for the management of privacy and people. The “settings” area enables the user to manipulate the way a wiki looks and how it is presented via its domain name. The most appealing section is the “tools” area where you can get URLs for badges and attach the wiki to a blog. Within this section is the “wiki statistics” icon that provides nifty little graphs to show the number of views, edits, messages and other interesting information regarding a specific wiki. Although setting up my wiki was easy and there are a number of useful tools and features available, I’m not sure that I feel confident using this web 2.0 technology. I found the privacy settings (permissions) to be a bit confusing and even now am not entirely clear about what my students will and won’t be able to do. I’ve decided that I will carefully check this out once I set up my student accounts (which I’ll do in the next few days). Upon checking, I did confirm that my wiki is indeed private as you need to log in to access it. Within the last couple of days I have had the opportunity to participate on a few wikis and I found this experience motivating and simple to do. I also appreciated the e-mails that I received explaining that I’ve been invited to participate in a wiki and was given guidance (via the wiki tours) on how to go about this experience. By participating in other wikis I’ve realized that I will probably feel more confident as I spend additional time with this web 2.0 technology and am looking forward to collaborating with others via wikis.

Wikispaces – For my own Personal Learning

At this point I’m not sure if I will create a wiki for personal use, mainly because I’m not sure what it would be about or who my audience/participants would be. If I could convince my family and/or close friends to become more technologically savvy, perhaps I would feel more inclined to do so. I guess another way to go about this would be to locate some new friends via web 2.0 technologies, I heard from a little bird that Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/) may be useful for this! In the meantime I am more than happy to contribute on other peoples’ wikis.

I really like the way wikis enable me to collaborate and allow for others to confirm or correct my information, as this helps to ensure that the information is accurate (Richardson, 2009 www.amazon.com/Blogs-Wikis-Podcasts-Powerful-Classrooms/dp/1412959721/ref=ed_oe_p). However, I must be honest and admit that prior to researching wikis for this blog, I did think that Wikipedia was not a reliable resource for information. It was through my research that I discovered just how reliable wiki information can be. Alex Halavais, a University of Buffalo professor, tested this theory via the Isuzu Experiment (http://alex.halavais.net/the-isuzu-experiment/) by creating 13 errors on various posts on Wikipedia and within a few hours all of the errors were corrected (Richardson, 2009). Another study by the Denver Post (http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_5786064) asked experts to review entries in their field of study and 4 out of 5 agreed that the Wikipedia entries were accurate, informative, and comprehensive (Richardson, 2009). I like that in the event someone comes along and ‘vandalizes’ a page, the wiki history function makes it easy revert the page back to its previous version. However, with many people using a site and their collaborative efforts there is less of a chance of inaccuracies in information (Richardson, 2009). Collaborating with others is often a win-win situation, so the next time I have something to contribute, I’ll be sure to add my ideas or make changes on a wiki. And who knows, perhaps one day I’ll be the organizer of my own personal wiki – just think of the things I will learn!

Wikispaces – for my Professional Learning

Aside from personal interest, business and education are the two environments that I feel would most benefit from the collaborative medium of wikis. Since I’m an educator and education is my business, I’m fairly certain that wikis would be really useful in my environment. The main focus in the school where I work is to ensure that students are engaged by enabling them to be capable, connected and contributing members of society. Wikis are an amazing web 2.0 technology that supports this initiative by providing a medium for this type of work. They also allow for differentiated instruction and may help English Language Learners use and become more familiar with the English language in a meaningful format.

Based on my own research and that of my students, it is safe to say that Wikipedia entries consistently come up in the top ten search results for just about any topic (Davis & Merchant, 2009). Thus, without even intentionally introducing wikis into the classroom they are already being used in educational environments, at least for gathering information. In order to effectively use wikis in the classroom educators are going to need to educate their students on how to constructively edit them, participate in discussions and ensure that they understand how to respect the intellectual property of others. Additionally, educators will need to select the level of privacy that is most appropriate for their situation. With this being said, there are millions of wonderfully educational ways that wikis can be used in the classroom. The ‘WikEd!’ wiki has a list of examples of how wikis can be used in a K-12 classroom, which includes science fair projects, literature circles, and student portfolios, and can be viewed at: http://wik.ed.uiuc.edu/index.php/Wiki_in_a_K-12_classroom. ‘Wikis In Education’ is a wiki with a comprehensive list of classroom wikis that provides the URL, grade level and a brief description on how the wiki is being used; check it out at: http://wikisineducation.wetpaint.com/page/Wikis+in+the+Classroom. If you like what you see, you may want to visit the ‘Wikis In Education’ home page (http://wikisineducation.wetpaint.com/) for links to pages that use wikis in more diverse ways, including teacher-peer wikis, global wikis, student created wikis, and group project wikis. There is some amazing collaborative work being done with wikis and it isn’t just for students, as educators are also using them to collaborate with fellow educators from around the world. Although educators share tips about using wikis in the classroom on the ‘Wikis In Education’ wiki, you may want to compare wiki programs at the http://www.wikimatrix.org/ site in order to choose the best program for you specific needs.

Here are some of the pros and cons regarding the use of wikis in the classroom:

Pros
Easy to create a wiki on Wikispaces
Excellent help section with “tours”
Able to adjust many of the settings
Interesting and useful “tools”
Other applications can easily be added to Wikispaces
Can stimulate higher order thinking skills
Encourages collaboration/networking
Connect/share with others locally or from around the world
Real audience
Cross-curricular
Allows for differentiated instruction
Creates excitement (engaged students)
Deepens understanding of a topic
Supports inclusive education
Can select level of privacy
Many websites where educators can collaborate with colleagues

Cons
Vandalism could be a problem
Inaccurate information is possible
Negative outcomes (e.g. embarrassment)
Privacy could be an issue
May not feel confident to use/share at first
Some people don’t view wikis as a reliable resource

I’m so thrilled about using wikis in my classroom that I’ve recently created a wiki for my students to use. With this wiki, I look forward to connecting with my students in the role of a facilitator in order to allow them to learn from one another, as much research has done in this area to show the benefits of this teaching style (www.education4skills.com/jtylee/teacher_as_facilitator.html). As soon as I’m able to book some computer time I’m going to have my students work on sharing what they’ve learned in our “Trees and Forests” science unit. You are welcome to visit our wiki (http://where-we-learn.wikispaces.com/), but I’m going to keep it in a protected mode (invited guests only, drop me a message if your interested) until we are more confident users. Wikis are another web 2.0 technology that prepare our 21st century learners for the collaborative environment that they will most likely work in (http://www.infotoday.com/Paris/Collaboration/).