To Wiki or Not To Wiki…
Remember the old saying,
“Three heads are better than one”? If we believe this is true, and I
know I do, than a Wiki serves as a place where students can put their heads
together and collaborate, collaborate, collaborate. Therefore, To Wiki it is!
Parker & Chao (2007) as
cited in King & Cox (2011) posited that there are two clear reasons to use
Wikis in learning: one, cooperation and collaboration occurs in a Wiki and two,
the learning approach is constructivist; which allows the learner to construct
meaning from the process of information building and application. Using a Wiki
provides students an opportunity to not just talk about collaboration but
to actually engage in it and build meaning from it. If learning is a social
process, as constructivist theorists believe, than a Wiki offers that space to
interact and be socially engaged with classmates.
In my opinion, the Cons to using a Wiki are few. The fact that
a Wiki is on a public domain, which makes it accessible to anyone for editing and
viewing, can be mitigated with a password that protects against these concerns. Moreover, some might argue that Wikis
might promote a “collective bias” because the Wiki authors must agree on the
information presented. I don’t
find merit in this argument as it could also be applied to anything that is
produced by a group of people e.g. books, articles, presentations, etc.
A Wiki provides a virtual space to interact, work together, and ultimately
collaborate. Therefore, the process
of engaging in a Wiki serves as a valuable learning tool, allowing opportunity
for students to be active in their own learning process and take more ownership
of that process.
Reference:
King, K. & Cox, T. (2011).The Professor’s Guide
to Taming Technology. Charlotte, NC:
Information
Age Publishing.
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ReplyDeleteI agree that it's great to have other brains to lean on when creating a project, such as a wiki. Sometimes I am lucky to have a classmate in my group that has a wealth of experience on a topic and is willing to share.
ReplyDeleteKing and Cox (2011) cite Clancey (1995) describing groups of people with different experiences collaborating on a project creating a community of practice. King and Cox (2011) also cite Lipponen (2002) who believes that group wikis assist in the sharing and increase of knowledge between group members.
Our K-state instructors always insist that instructors need to acknowledge learner experiences and knowledge. I think when working in group project with other learners, like wikis, that this thought is also applicable learner to learner.
Also, I find that communication and respect for my other learners is the key.
King, K. & Cox, T. (2011). The Professor’s Guide to Taming Technology. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.
I agree that Wikis are great for promoting collaboration, but I think they can be challenging for some learners. I have only done one Wiki, but I have participated in numerous group projects. I have experienced all of the horrors of working with diverse personalities with various work ethics. I have also benefitted from a few phenomenal collaborations. Wikis are like any other form of group project. As long as guidelines are expressed and every member contributes equally, they can be productive and efficient. As adult educators, we must remember that there are many ways to contribute and many learning styles to consider. Therefore, we must encourage open communication while being prepared to intervene if the group is unable to come to a consensus.
ReplyDeleteAmen, Tonya. I completely agree with you. You stated my feelings very well. Thanks.
DeleteHello Eileen,
ReplyDeleteI’m glad to see someone else had the same thought I did in reaction to Lari’s concern about the so-called “collective perspective” and “collective bias” of wikis (2011, p. 123). As you point out, this isn’t unique to wikis. In fact, it isn’t unique to the products of groups either. Any human-produced document or artifact with semantic content will always represent a perspective since no individual or group benefits from the perspective-free position of omniscience. Since wikis are usually the product of a collaborative effort, the collective perspective they represent at least has the benefit of being more prone to objectivity than a document produced by a single individual, no matter how expert or neutral the individual may purport to be.
KSU Cuz
Reference
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: Leveraging digital media, Web 2.0, and more for learning (pp. 121-133). Charlotte, NC: Information Age.
Eileen,
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with your assessment of the Wiki being a great tool that has issues related to the group dynamic. I agree that collective bias is something that is a potential problem in any group setting. However, it seems in a Wiki setting there is less chance of that, as each person can enter their own ideas, without agreement from other participants. Actually, this might be a “con” on the Wiki, as each individual has access to everyone else’s information and has the freedom to change it as they see fit – relating to your graphic, which is great!
In my experience working on the group Wiki, there was not a lot of true collaboration, in the sense of us agreeing on what was or was not included. The collaboration happened only because we all contributed in some way – very small – in one instance. However, the ability of the instructor to review the site’s activity alleviated our concern about that one person’s lack of participation. We/I just decided to complete his assignment and move on, rather than continuing to email him reminders, etc.! So, did true collaboration take place? I can’t really say. Anyway, it was much better than exchanging a ton of emails and waiting, and waiting for a response!
Sonora