Transcript Wiki Workshop

Charles Olbert
Web Manager
UNC Center for European Studies
[email protected]
GOALS:
• Understand wikis conceptually
• Consider educational applications
• Obtain experience using and
implementing wikis
• Gain some fluency in thinking about
issues specific to education and
pedagogy
Bottom Line: Know whether wikis are
right for you
PROBLEMS:
How do you use the internet in an
engaging, interesting, genuinely
interactive way?
How can you use the “non-locality”
of the internet to your advantage
to work collaboratively?
What is it like to use the internet?
What was it like in the mid/late 1990s?
• Static webpages
• Look, but don’t touch
RESTAURANT
 Static list of menu options
 Menu determined by the chef
 Food cooked behind closed doors
 Power relations pre-determined (critics,
managers, owners)
 One-to-Many
development
WEB 1.0
 Static list of site contents
 Content determined by the webpage author(s)
 Site content developed independently from site
users
 Power relations pre-determined
(feedback forms, owners, authors)
 One-to-Many development
 Interactivity limited to clicks, email, search
METAPHORS
• Museum
• Magazine
• Lecture Class
INTERNET AS LEARNING TOOL
• Museum metaphor (to some extent)
• Note taking from authoritative source
• Passive intake
• Why prefer over “hard copy” resources?
• Barriers to entry for student use (hosting, code
knowledge, access)
INTERNET AS COLLABORATIVE TOOL
How is it any different from printing a file and
handing it to a colleague?
Why prefer electrons over hard copies?
Lack of genuine
interactivity
KITCHEN
 No list of pre-determined options
 Recipes developed by individuals
 Developed with others in kitchen
 Power relations up for grabs
 Many-to-Many development
METAPHORS
• Playground
• Lego sets
• Improv Theatre
“Web 2.0 is a term often applied to a
perceived ongoing transition of the
World Wide Web from a collection of
static websites to a full-fledged
computing platform serving web
applications to end users.”
-- Tim O’Reilly
(widely credited with coining the term “web 2.0”)
WEB 1.0
WEB 2.0
Reading
Companies/Individuals
Home pages
Ownership
Lectures
Encyclopedias
Static
Internet as Product
Writing
Communities
Blogs
Sharing
Conversations
Wikipedia
Dynamic
Internet as Process
GOAL: To create genuinely
interactive, interesting
applications on the internet.
PROBLEM: How do you do it?
BARRIERS TO ENTRY:
Dynamic?
Collaborative?
Process-Oriented?
AND with minimal resources?
*** Problem Areas
CODE KNOWLEDGE
PLATFORM INDEPENDENCE
HOSTING
CLAIM:
Wikis are one pretty good, pretty
accessible resource for achieving
some of these goals with minimal
investment.
“A wiki is a website where every page can be
edited in a web browser, by whomever happens
to be reading it.” – Tom Stafford, Matt Webb
“A wiki allows a group of people to enter and
communally edit bits of text. These bits of text
can be viewed and edited by anyone who visits
the wiki.” – Marshall Brain
“A wiki is a collection of web pages designed to
enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or
modify content, using a simplified markup
language” – Wikipedia
A wiki is, essentially, just a collaborative, fully
editable website.
Components:
1. Collaboration: “anyone” can add, edit, link, even
delete
2. Simplicity: light, easy to use “markup language”
(no need to know html/php/etc.)
3. Soft Security: automatic backups, revision
histories
Same elements of normal webpage: links, text,
images – Same versatility as a normal webpage
BUT:
• links to editor
• links to revision history
Wikis make it easy to correct
rather than difficult to make them.
mistakes
Hand authority over to a group culture: bottom-up
“soft” security rather than top-down “hard”
security.
Good for developing content, less good for
developing style (writing or visual).
Wikis versus blogs versus “home pages”:
Homepages – pre-defined content, no
system for indicating change. Implied single
author (one who knows html or a designer).
Blogs – additive content in one dimension
(time). Implied singular author.
Wikis – undefined structure (until users impose
it on their own terms). No pre-defined implied
author.
BIG DEAL? Anyone can edit – is that revolutionary?
YES!
Moves from model of authority to model
of trust and community.
Achieves shift in technology through shift
in philosophy.
BIG DEAL? Anyone can edit – is that revolutionary?
YES!
Demonstrates that learning need not be based on
receiving “word from on high” or by a solitary
individual reading a book.
Learning can happen in a community, collaboratively.
BIG DEAL? Anyone can edit – is that revolutionary?
YES!
Challenges students to think hard about issues of
knowledge creation, community, and compromise.
Who owns wiki content?
How do you negotiate changes?
How do you identify non-neutral points of view?
BIG DEAL? Anyone can edit – is that revolutionary?
"...The biggest thing about these self-publishing tools is
that they’re self-publishing... You don’t need to be a geek
to be able to publish to the ‘net anymore - and this stuff
has the potential to “fix” the web, which was supposed to
be a dynamic network of linked content published by
individuals, but got co-opted into a variation of the TV
broadcast model, with users sitting in front of glowing
screens receiving the content that The Man wants to feed
them. Instead, we can effectively publish our own
content, with whatever authority we can muster."
-- D'Arcy Norman
WEB 1.0 Pages
Authority
Opacity
High Barrier to Entry
Ownership
Wiki Pages
Community
Transparency
Low Barrier to Entry
Contribution
Wikis maximize interplay.
Wikis are democratic
Wikis work in real time.
Wiki technology is text-based
Wikis permit public document construction (distributed
authorship)
Wikis complicate the evaluation of writing
Wikis promote negotiation
Wikis permit collaborative document editing, or open
editing.
Wikis make feedback intensely public and potentially
durable.
Wikis work on volunteer collaboration..
From dossiers practiques by Renée Fountain
http://wiki.charlesolbert.com/
First: Create an account
(link is at upper right)
Then you should see something like this:
http://wiki.charlesolbert.com/
Second: pick a page to edit
The editor looks like this:
Mouse-over the buttons for a brief
description of what they do. Then play
around and create/edit!
http://wiki.charlesolbert.com/
Third: take a look at the revision history
Creating a wiki using a
third-party application
http://sites.google.com/
Type your email address
in the box and click on
“Get Started” button
http://sites.google.com/
Once you fill in the
form, you will be
sent an email for
verification.
http://sites.google.com/
Next: sign in.
Then: find ‘sites’ link at
right and click through
http://sites.google.com/
Site Name
Categories
Description
Access Rules
Display
properties
http://sites.google.com/
Creating and
editing pages is
straightforward.
Google Sites’
editor is a little
more familiar
than MediaWiki’s.
http://sites.google.com/
Access controls
seem reasonable
in terms of
functionality.
Administrators
and parents can
be invited as
viewers.
FOR TEACHERS
• Collaborative syllabi
• Tracking progress/behavior across classrooms
• Meeting planning / agenda creation
• Event planning
• Collaborating with other/international schools
• Develop a database of lesson plans
“Using the wiki has allowed us to
share and collaborate on the
research that we would have
otherwise done individually”
FOR STUDENTS
• Collaborative projects
• “Process-oriented” writing tool (track changes)
• Connecting with other schools or students,
nationally or internationally
• Peer editing / review
• Teaching consensus & compromise
• Building outlines and reference lists
• Annotating longer works/poems/stories
• Creating online bibliographies
• Adopt a Wikipedia page
• Online “study groups”
“In all instances, the users decided for
themselves how the wiki would fulfill their
objectives. Technical support and training
was minimal: at most, one hour of
instruction was needed, and in most
cases, orientation was handled by a
single email.”
Brian Lamb
VANDALISM
The power to create entails the power
to destroy: in other words, “if
anybody can edit my text, then
anybody can ruin
my text.”
(Vandalism is most likely to
happen on wikis that
involve controversial topics)
VANDALISM
BUT: You have the power to revert to previous
versions in the edit history.
You can also track who
made what changes.
Define vandalism and
clearly specify consequences.
Accountability is key.
Discourage deletion. Encourage “refactoring”
PARTICIPATION
Major factor in success/failure of wikis.
Assessment that supports collaboration:
• Assess process AND product
• Group marks
• Strong individual marks
• Peer assessment
Clearly define expectations and have a
transparent system for assessment that you
discuss up-front (i.e., explain why).
ASSESSMENT ISSUES
• Minor edits can have bigger than anticipated
effects.
• Edits & Improvements vs. content
• Rewrites vs. core ideas
Comfort Level
TEACHER COMFORT
• Giving up authority
• Yet closely monitoring
• Ensuring student privacy/safety
• Fluency with software
STUDENT COMFORT
• Feeling good making contributions
• Making edits directly to others’ work/contributions
• Fluency with software
Openness, Context
The amount of monitoring
and moderating required by
wikis will depend on the context.
Collaborating with other teachers can be
more free-wheeling and open than using
wikis to monitor process-oriented writing.
YOUR SCHOOL’S POLICY:
• Can you post student work on the web?
• Can you use student names/initials?
• Can you post class pictures?
• What is the policy on posting info that might
identify the class online?
• Can these policies be met through security
settings, parent and student agreements?
• Are the wiki tools that you want to use blocked
by your school’s filter? (and: can they be
unblocked?)
“The best ways to get parents excited about your
wiki are to inform them and to include them.”
-- TeachersFirst
Keep pages private to ensure security.
Allow parent access as requested?
(Some wikis allow ‘view only’ members, which is a
good solution for allowing parents access to the
wiki without worrying that they’ll start making
edits.)
“Wikis are at their best when a small number of
people are working intensely on related material.
They're messy, immediate, and a powerful way
of sharing thinking space with your
collaborators.” – Tom Stafford & Matt Webb
Wikis require further effort:
Technology does not always change
practices by itself. Students will not leap
to collaborate just because the tool allows
for it.
[email protected]
wiki.charlesolbert.com
UNC Center for European Studies
European Union Center of Excellence
www.euce.org