TheWikiWorld

Aloha, and welcome to a brief wiki summary!

In the Hawaiian language, “wiki wiki ” means “quickly”, and avid users of the wiki as a collaborative tool like it because it can be, in fact, a fast and fairly efficient method of sharing and building knowledge.

This week in my UW-Stout course Assessment of Student Learning in the Online Classroom, I worked as part of a team to develop an "Assessment Toolbox", and my task was to research the wiki and it's applications in education.

In short, a wiki is a website that allows users to add or change content. Each time the text is changed, a new version is saved, but anyone can go back and see previous versions. The term “wiki” can refer to either the site created or the software that runs it. A relatively new phrase used to describe such tools as wikis, blogs, and MySpace, is “social software”—technologies that facilitate group communication.

In my research, I found many applications of the wiki both in business and education settings. Wiki “communities” vary, some having clearly-stated goals and invited members, while others are more loosely knit, both in terms of purposes and participants. Obviously, the Team 4 Assessment Toolbox is an example of the former.

As an aside, I was introduced to wikis last winter through another UW-Stout online course. I found the experience of working collaboratively frustrating because I felt that the instructions were not clear, and I found the wiki software lacking; there seemed to be no manageable way for me to format my contributions because I have no html editing knowledge. I vowed never again to use a wiki unless forced to do so! However, my needs as an educator have dictated that I find a venue for online communication with and between students, so I decided to take another look at wikis. I'm glad I did.

Not only did I find a wealth of information to share and to use, I enjoyed this project. Why? Well, first, I was able to choose my focus, and it turned out to be a tool that I will use myself. I think, in fact, that it will provide the necessary means to "hybridize" my ITV course. Once I began searching for information on wikis, I found it hard to stop. There are so many creative applications and possibilities--I'm thankful that I'm taking this class in the summer when I have time to "play."

Secondly, this Toolbox project illustrated the "Jigsaw" method of assessment, whereby a number of contributors complete individual projects which are then unified into a single document. I worked on my portion early in the week because I have commitments from this afternoon until the weekend; I haven't been able to see what my team members have come up with, but I'm eager for that opportunity. And this is another aspect of the project that I liked: the three of us on Team 4 were able to coordinate our plans early, then proceed as our schedules allowed. We didn't communicate much, but we didn't have to because we were all on the same page and seemed to have the same understanding and vision of the project from the start. I worked independently, but I feel like part of a team nonetheless.

So, I come away from this Midterm satisfied that I thoroughly explored the "Wiki World". I have a substantial collection of resources to bolster my development of a course wiki. More importantly, I have resources that detail the sound pedagogy of wiki use as constructivist learning so necessary to the building of knowledge--this will help me "sell" wiki use to administrators in the school districts from which my students originate.

Please check out the sidebar for links to my research and the Team 4 Assessment Toolbox.