Today I set up my first Wiki site, using wikispaces.com. Until Thursday, I had never even heard of a 'wiki', besides 'wikipedia'. Basically, Wiki is a space where a community - large or small, public or private - may posting new ideas on the one topic and editing existing posts to come up with a more refined product. Unlike blogs, which everyone can read, but noone may edit, a Wiki can be viewed by all and edited by others also. What an amazing classroom tool!!!!
As a student I can count a dozen times where this tool would have been helpful in my studies so far. By using Wiki we would have eliminated the need to send group emails back and forth, wasting time reading over the same things and duplicate ideas. When organising events and assignments through group emailing, the task is almost always pushed forward by the most organised person who doesn't mind re-organising information and sending it back in a collated form. The Wiki would save this person so much time as there is no need for one person to be the organiser. With wiki the responsibility is on the GROUP.
There have been many changes in education over the years. Before the industrialized era where education became print based, people were educated aurally (Ferris & Wilder, 2008). Oral culture had the strength of being based in community and people had group ownership of knowledge. The introduction of print based education moved education from a community focus to an individual act. Print also meant information was not from the 'now'. Instead, the printing of information meant education could become stagnant and outdated. Ferris and Wilder (2008) talk about the era of education called, "secondary orality," where technology allows education to take the best of both print and oral methods of acquiring knowledge.
I absolutely see the benefit of Wikis in the classroom. Wiki technology reintroduces the focus on group/community and encourages participation. In a class setting, it benefits the students, but also the teacher who can easily monitor who has been contributing to tasks by looking at the log of edits, and can contribute clues if groups are off task, or have inaccurate information.
PLUS
ReplyDelete* Constructivist learning - able to work with peers
* Able to present knowledge using numerous technologies – video, images, text
* LM can see the stages of development/thinking, and who has been editing
* Easy to use
* Develops an academic community
INTERESTING
* no ‘boss’ - each has equal say in how the task is created
MINUS
* don’t know if it is the student or parent helping at home, if it is worked on outside school hours