The term “wiki” is probably most prominent in our minds from websites like Wikipedia and Wikileaks. Wikileaks has been all over the news for various reasons and often leads to a negative connotation associated with the term wiki. Teachers often tend to have a negative association with the term also because of the over excessive use of Wikipedia by students. The term wiki has garnered an undeserved negative reputation. Through exploration and study, we can learn that wiki is not negative at all, but in fact it is a useful tool that can change the way teachers and media specialist work. Wiki in its origin is “a Hawaiian word used as an alliterative substitute for quick, to avoid naming this software quick-Web.” By definition, it has become a webpage that can be quickly adapted by anyone who has access to the internet and access to the website.
The ability to change a wiki page is both a positive and a negative. The positive aspect of this allows anyone to basically log their thoughts and ideas. By clicking edit, a user can add any thoughts or ideas that they may have at the time. They can then adapt or edit their thoughts if they wish. The accessibility and ease of editing promotes the use of the wiki by more people. Whereas creating a webpage can take time and needs to be published, by its nature, a wiki is a fast pace fluid document.
The negative aspect of this is that anyone can edit the page. This is the main concern teachers have with Wikipedia is that the information can be unreliable. Wikipedia has since started controlling the information allowed; however, most wiki pages are susceptible to false information. As a user of a wiki page, I may choose to edit the page with false information. I can also eliminate information submitted by another user.
In education wikis promote collaboration in all aspects. If a wiki is used by a class, students can easily share their thoughts and ideas on a given subject. The teacher can also comment. The wiki, itself, becomes the work. The students at the end of the discussion could even choose to finalize their discussion and eventually turn it into a teacher for a grade.
A wiki can also be used by teachers to brainstorm ideas for the classroom or a school. You can have numerous contributors including regular education teachers, special education teachers, and administrators. With the numerous amount of responsibilities placed on teachers, a wiki could be a quick easy way for teachers to collaborate from their own desk.
Some people have criticized wikis as being nothing more than “storage cabinets.” In order for this to not be the case, there must be an active participation by all users involved in the wiki. In a classroom environment, this can be combated by making sure that posting to the wiki is part of the student’s grade.
For a media specialist, it may be more difficult to get regular contributors to the wiki. A media specialist must be active themselves on the wiki and encourage students and teachers on a regular basis to share information.
Most of us in this class are familiar with wiki because we use wikispaces as a part of this class. Below is a link to a wide variety of educational wikis. The links for the wikis are actually part of a wiki itself.
I agree that there are positive and negative aspects to wikis. I think the positive outweigh the negatives. Getting students to feel like they are doing something authentic and relevant is so important in teaching. Using wikis to promote sharing ideas and working together is a way that even elementary students will feel is relevant. Also, it gives a real audience for their writing.
ReplyDeleteI think you are also right when you say that media specialists need to actively work and encourage the use of their wikis. But this is true for all the things that we as media specialists will develop and create. That will, in turn keep us in tune with our schools and our patrons. Thanks for great information!
Scott, I think that it is clear that you and I know what a Wiki is now and how a Wiki can be used as collaboration too for both teachers and students. Although, I think the Wiki is easy to use and helpful, I appreciate you pointing out the negative aspects of using a Wiki. I believe that everyone should know that the information posted on a Wiki is not ALWAYS CORRECT! Another negative factor in using a Wiki is that anytime, someone can delete its entire contents. I find that very scary as a teacher and student that might be collaborating with others for a grade. The question is, are Wiki’s really safe to use if they are that vulnerable? A Wiki can’t be very effective if the edit limitations are set to high because legitimate posters would find it difficult to edit and post. In knowing all of these negative factors, I believe that I will still use a Wiki as a media specialist and as a teacher.
ReplyDeleteI am starting to think of a Wiki as a Swiss Army knife for educators. The Swiss Army knife has many potential uses (screw driver, knife, fork, spoon etc.). However, it may not be the best one in every situation. There are tools designed to meet a specific need and do it expertly. The same goes for the wiki. It has the potential to meet our needs. The Wiki can be "mashed" with other software to do a very "good job" for users (teachers, students). In fact, I am starting to like the "con" (cabinet storage)feature of the wiki. It provides a multitude of information to users. I got lost in your educationalwikis/wikispaces.com site for over 30 minutes mining it for websites that I can use in my classes at school and for our Westga course. I felt like I had hit the "mother lode."
ReplyDeleteI also found a wiki that has been long dead, 18000 Campus way. It was well done using Wetpaint.com, but had not been used since 2008.
Wiki's have their place in education and in the classroom. I just believe that they are like the Swiss Army knife. They provide an adequate utility for many things that we need...collaboration, storage cabinet, and information sharing being a few. However, there are "expert tools" that can do an "excellent job" for a specific purpose. As long as the expert tools are expen$ive and the wiki is free (or cheap), I believe the wiki will be a tool of choice for many educators.
Scott,
DeleteYou and I experience the negative with Wikipedia 6 times a year! I hate that discussion of why they cannot use Wikipedia for their research papers, so I think I have a bad taste in my mouth for wikis in general. While I think they could be a great tool for collaboration, I hate the idea someone's grade being dependent on someone else's contributions. It would take some planning and the upper level students would be great at it, but I would be concerned having my lower-level students use a Wiki. Some would not contribute much that would lend way to discussion or they would not do it at all.
In the spirit of our debate tonight, what type of filters would be on a Wiki at a school? :)
Wikis almost remind me of an online Socratic Seminar. We do this all the time as English teachers - just sit with our students and talk about what they have read and what stands out as important. A Wiki would just be an online verision of this, complete with students' thoughts, opinions, and questions. We just wouldn't experiene the fun of them battling each other over their opinions.