Why Wiki?

A wikis is a collection of web pages which can be shared and edited by multiple viewers. Its main purpose is to act as an easily accessible medium to enable the sharing of ideas and comments whilst engaging collective collaborative and wide participation. Ward Cunningham, the developer of the first wiki software, WikiWikiWeb, originally described it as ‘the simplest online database that could possibly work’ (Ward, 2002, cited in Wikipedia, 2010a). A good starting point for understanding what a wiki offers can be found the Educause report which identifies seven things you should know about wikis available http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7004.pdf

Users are able to edit any page and can create new pages within a wiki web site using simple web based authorising tools which do not require any client side downloads. The development of wiki pages help to promote useful subject associations between other wiki pages using simple hyperlink. Wikis seek to involve the viewer with ongoing process of creation and collaboration that constantly changes the Web site landscape; this dynamic environment aims to be refreshed by user generated content.

Wikis are often used by academic establishments as part of a blended e-learning solution to promote collaborative work between a specific cohort of learners to produce a joint piece of evidence. Online distance learners can use wikis as means to connect with other group members to develop a project. This web based asynchronous tool fits well with all the advantages identified in e-learning where learners can make contributions at their own pace but be able to instantly display others the details they wish to share.

The must famous wiki of all is Wikipedia accessed at www.wikipedia.org. This online research tool is much more than just an online encyclopaedia. ‘Since its creation in 2001, Wikipedia has grown rapidly into one of the largest reference web sites, attracting nearly 68 million visitors monthly as of January 2010. There are more than 91,000 active contributors working on more than 15,000,000 articles in more than 270 languages’ (Wikipedia, 2010b). The main advantage over a paper based encyclopaedia is the search function; from this you are able to have a powerful and comprehensive database of information at your finger tips.

Although the history facility enables users to track changes and contributions the main problem with Wikipedia is the validity of the content. That said, user added content is moderated and edited by many other people who share an interest in a specific topic. The speed at which a contribution is edited and corrected by a large body of volunteers is very impressive. Unlike paper reference materials, Wikipedia is continually updated, with the creation or updating of articles on historic events within hours, minutes, or even seconds, rather than months or years for printed encyclopaedias.

From my own experience some academic establishments question the validity of the content taken from online wiki resources unless the details are backed up peer review papers or journals. This puts pressure on the user community to consider value added content and relies on the social values expressed by a ‘community of practice’ (Wenger 1996). Weller continues this thought and adds that ‘individuals learn by participating in a real-context community’ (Weller, 2006, p.12). The values required are that of trust in others, support gained from peer group learning, the sharing of ideas, identity in community spirit and the building of shared ownership.

For a simple illustration on how users can benefit from using a wiki please view the youtube clip that explains wikis in plain English at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dnL00TdmLY.

References

Weller (2006) Weller, M.J. (2006) ‘The distance from isolation: why communities are the logical conclusion in e-learning’ in Dias de Figueiredo, A. and Afonso, A. (eds) Managing Learning in Virtual Settings: The Role of Context, Hershey, PA, Information Science Publishing.

Wenger, E. (1996) Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Wikipedia (2010a) ‘Wikipedia definition for Wiki’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki#cite_note-3 (Accessed 30 Mar 10)

Wikipedia (2010b) ‘Wikipedia, Help:About’, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:About (Accessed 30 Mar 10)

What are the affordances found in emails and blogs?

Email

Affordances - Directed messaging service. Aims to inform and inquire about specific subject or detail

Strengths - Known audience contained to those on the distribution list.
Ability to communicate one to one or one to many. Feedback on email delivery and trackable read notices. Send attachments and hyperlinks

Shortcomings - Size and type of attachments may be limited via firewalls

Blogs

Affordances - General distribution of thoughts and feelings. Aims to engage others with own personal reflections

Strengths - Private viewing but this does not afford feedback. Limited viewing where blogger seeks comments and feedback within a known group. Open to public view to reach a much larger audience. Can host variety of media ie podcasts, video clips and document downloads.

Shortcomings - Your audience is unknown unless they post a comment.
Little feedback to the blogger on who reads the blog posts

The affordances of both asynchronous technologies are dependent on how different users engage with the medium. For example some managers may use email as a primary method to communicate and delegate work to their staff to avoid face-to-face confrontation. Others might use email to back up a telephone conversation to ensure they maintain an audit trail of information being communicated or requested. Do bloggers write for themselves or are they seeking feedback from other?

Wk 6 & 7 Reflections - Interviewing an Innovator

The last two weeks have been extremely valuable giving me an opportunity to interview an innovator. Although I initially struggled to identify who would be a good candidate to interview, fortunately a work colleague was willing to share her recent successes.

The innovation I investigated involved using forums to conduct pre-course learning activities prior to attending a week residential course on the subject of ‘Introduction into E-Learning’. Although the concept is certainly not new for the likes of the Open University, I choose to interview this innovator as it was the very first time discussion forums have been used to engage a group of MOD learners to conduct pre-course learning activities on the Defence Learning Portal.

I approached the interview by initially requesting answers to a set of questions send via email having previously agreed my rationale to gathering data. This enabled me to read through the interviewee’s responses and research interesting line of enquiry before re-engaging with a final face-to-face interview. In my research I found several good examples which identify the benefits of using forums to connect distance learners and shared this information with the interviewee with a view to help improve her academic grounding. This was well received and we are now both working towards advertising these benefits to encourage other training organisations to seek similar learning opportunities.

All going well I should have the TMA02 report completed by the end of the week. I hope fellow H807ers find this activity as enjoyable and rewarding as I have?

Wk5 Reflections - A Juggling Act

This week has been a struggle to find time for studying what with the competition of my work/life balance across all my commitments. Although I had thought TMA01 was sewn up last week I have found myself revisiting this task again trying to find justification for my case study choices. If only the assignment guidance notes were as comprehensive as the tutor forums comments then I might have avoided this re-visit!

I guess the problem here is, in the search to strive for perfection (or good grades) we will all keep making minor adjustments to our assignments prior to them being submitted. Sometimes I find it much easier to work on an assignment for one or two weeks and then submit it straight away before starting to juggle the next TMA as well.

As I am taking two weeks holiday to Egypt in April I will need to complete the ‘Interview with an Innovator’ assignment before departing just in case there are any delays in getting back to the UK. This means I am going to have to work much harder to keep ahead of the learning curve over the next few weeks as do not plan to take my laptop on holiday, or should I take it?