After opening up my week four folder I was very surprised to see the topic of this weeks blog- wikis. I consider myself to be pretty good on the computer but I must admit I've never heard of a wiki. After thinking about it I decided to find an article that was just about how wikis worked.
The article I chose is a pretty basic breakdown about what a wiki is and how it works. The article states that a wiki is just a place that allows a group of people to enter and communally edit bits of text, and can be viewed by anyone and even edited by anyone. After reading more and more I saw that the article was really combating a lot of common misconceptions of the wiki and it's overall technological contribution. It was really interesting to actually try out Wikipedia, the largest and most famous wiki, and actually do some changing to articles written. Behind it all though is community. Basically that is how the wiki is run and how it functions.
The effect that the wiki has on teaching and learning is still a little confusing to me. While the wiki is really just an opinion based place to find and input information it still might be able to give students the ability to correct and be corrected. One thing I found out is that the wiki is a relatively safe place to actually go, although one might think otherwise. The community is what pretty much governs the wiki and really protects students or anyone for that matter from porn or otherwise offensive changes.
Personally I don't think that the wiki is a good tool for teaching or students. I think it is great to use as software for a business or organization to add to and make better, but maybe not as good for schools. With that being said, I have to admit that it might have some advantages in the classroom. I like the fact that is a run by the community and students may be able to input information and be virtually corrected within minutes. I also like that a student can really get into the whole community thing and add their own ideas and opinions. It also may be a good place to brainstorm ideas and find links to related info. My biggest drawback is the ability for a student to research something and take what they find as fact. Even though corrections are made pretty fast, there is still the ability to get some wrong information. All in all I think that this technology is a good place to find a good mix of input, perspective and ideas but cannot replace fact.
I think that further investigation would be interesting due to the fact that the wiki is controlled by community. I think it would be interesting to see how the "community" reacts to certain controversial subjects. The article talked about George Bush's page and how so many people were inputting opinions every second. It went on to say though that the community eventually reached a neutrality. All in all I learned a lot of new info on the wiki but am still just a little skeptical.
If you would like to read more about how wikis work feel free to check it out at:
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/wiki.htm
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6 comments:
I really enjoyed your article, and the website. Just reading the both of them has helped me to understand a little more about Wikis. Like you, I had no idea what they were.
I think that Wikis could be helpful in classes that emphasize a lot of group work, and possibly an opinionated class. I am just not sure about the openly editing tool of Wikis. However, after going to this website, I think that it might be a great opportunity and experience for a classroom to try. It would be very interesting!
Before this research was assigned I had no idea what a wiki was either! I do agree with you about this type of technology not really being a helpful tool of learning or teaching. It basically helps you enhance your computer skills in certain ways. I think you did a very good job of covering this subject. Good job Ryan!
I think the idea of Wiki's skipped my generation as well. You made an excellent point..when using wiki's in the classroom the teacher needs to enforce upon the children that even though what they read is seen by millions it does not make it the truth. Before introducing wikis in the classroom teachers need to educate the children as to which sites contain factual information and which contain opinions. I still think the advantages (expression of opinions and creativity) outweigh the disadvantages when wikis are used appropriately.
-Jennifer Z.
I too could not figure out what a wiki was until I googled it for this assignment. It turns out that it is a pretty fascinating tool. With this being said, I do agree that it may be inappropriate in the classroom setting. Also, as I had not thought about before you mentioned, I'm sure students are going to take all of the information as factual when really it may or may not be. I would like to try it as a university student but I wouldn't recommend it either in the K-12 setting,
Mia Cirillo
I thought your article was really good. I didn't know too much about wikis before this either. The only experience I had ever had with them was using Wikipedia, and I know that isn't a very reliable source. I think you raised some very interesting points about the benefits and downfalls of using wikis in the classroom. I'm still not totally convinced that these are the best idea for the classroom yet either.
Don't feel bad, I didn't know what a wiki was either. I only could only relate it to the word wikipedia. Your summary was very good and I enjoyed your article. I also agree with you that it isn't that great of a tool for teaching and learning. A wiki could be fool of BS information.
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