Do you wiki? I wiki. Come on, everyone does it. You know… all the cool kids wiki.
As it turns out, more than all the cool kids have a wiki. Both the beauty and the bane of wikis is that anyone can have one. The beautiful part of wikis being (largely) free is anyone with a notion can create one. They are easy to access thanks to sites like Wikispaces, Pbworks, Google Sites, and myriad others; also, since wikis use a simplified visual editor, the barrier that was coding no longer exists, which prevented many people from creating websites. The downside to wikis is that there are a lot out there that are ineffectively utilized. Prior to high quality, easy to create blogging sites like Weebly, Wix, Edublogger, and others people did not have an easy place to build a website, so they used wikis as a de facto websites or blogs. Because wikis are easy to access and use, we see a lot of defunct and misused wikis. A study in wiki usage showed that “most wikis that are used at all are sued for short-term projects and assignments rather than as long-term course platforms” (Reich, Murnane, & Willett, 2012). This explains why there are so many wikis out there that are not being used actively, but when wikis are well used and become a part of a teacher or a student’s learning toolbox we see exactly why wikis are important in education. An effective wiki provides a resource for people to collaborate, share resources, and provide feedback on anything one wishes to post. Ward Cunningham wrote: “A wiki is a body of ideas that a community is willing to know and maintain”; wikis need people to build a wiki and sustain it. There are characteristics critical to successful, effective wikis that separate them from ineffective wikis. The most critical factor that differentiates the effective from the ineffective is a wiki should be collaborative. In this case, collaborative means that more than one person should be making changes to it, adding content, and updating/editing frequently. By virtue of collaboration, the wiki is better than what it would be with a single owner/editor/content provider. To give the reader a visual picture of what makes a good wiki, check out the infographic: “What Makes a Quality Wiki.” In the Euler diagram, the convergence of all 4 characteristics represents a wiki that is strong in all aspects. I have evaluated four wikis which are represented by dots on the infographic. A great example of a collaborative wiki can be found at Vicki Davis’s Westwood Computer Science classroom. It shows how powerful it can be to publish student work. Each student has an e-portfolio with their own page on the wiki. If you check out the recent changes on the page (look in the upper left-hand corner for the “Recent Changes” page) you will see many different contributors. The power and value in a wiki is having knowledgeable, diverse collaborators who provide a wide spectrum view of a topic, see this blog post from Creative Education for more information on the importance of wikis for collaboration. Westwood High School’s wiki lands in the junction of resources, structure, and collaboration. However, it is not in the middle of the diagram because the lack of visual elements means the user has to work to understand the structure of the website. Some visual elements might enhance the users’ experience. Resources are a critical element for a good wiki. An excellent example of this characteristic is DiRT a digital research tool wiki. DiRT is a plethora of tools for digital research. What I like about this site is that every link I clicked on worked (which is a rarity with wikis and webpages). Additionally, as a graduate student in digital technology, all the tools on this site are applicable to my work; it’s like a one-stop-shop. DiRT is an excellent example of a wiki that has high quality resources that are valuable to its users. The DiRT wiki is strong in structure, collaboration, and resources. The one area in which it is a little weak is visuals. However, the lack of visual elements does not negatively impact the users’ experience mainly because of its excellent structure and clean template on the front page. Another characteristic of effective wikis is the structure of the site. If your information is not effectively organized then users will not benefit from the information on the wiki. If you want to see a wiki with a good structure check out the Discovery Utopia. Everything a user needs can be found on the left-hand column of the front page. The table of contents on the right-hand side links to anchors on the front page since it is longer than can be seen without scrolling down. Additionally, this website does a great job of showing how a teacher can utilize the functionality of a wiki to publish student work to a worldwide audience. Discovery Utopia wiki effectively uses all four characteristics. Students post their utopia creations on a single page in which they can view and interact with their peer’s utopias. This wiki serves as a great example of how wikis can be used collaboratively by teachers and students to co-create a rubric. The structure is clear and logical, and the visuals are welcoming but not overwhelming or distracting. For all these reasons, Discovery Utopia lands right in the middle of the diagram. The final characteristic of good wikis is visual appeal. While wikis are geared towards people who do not code and may not be savvy in digital design, it is important to make your front page inviting and appealing. For a good example of a visually appealing wiki, take a look at Newton Barwa Academy’s Homework Page. While it is obviously not a professionally crafted website, it is neat, clean, and inviting to the user. Your graphics, pictures, or interactives should not be overwhelming or take away from the purpose of the page, but a little personalizing of the front page is appreciated. The Newton Barwa School’s homework site has strong resources and structure. Where this wiki could be more effective is in collaboration. A variety of teachers have added resources which is great, but there does not appear to be collaboration among contributors. In other words, the pages are all single authored with no one adding on another’s page. With more collaboration and involving students in this process, the wiki could be more effective.
These wikis are just examples of what constitutes a good wiki; all of them are excellent examples of educational wiki sites. It’s thanks to companies like Wikispaces and many others that have created open source web-based tools for people to use. The amount and variety of resources teachers and students can use has boomed in recent years. Now students, teachers, and parents can access a plethora of free resources for a variety of purposes.
Once upon a time, you could not purchase a new computer without having to purchase Microsoft’s Windows platform. And then, if you wanted to be able to type essays, letters, or other documents you had to purchase their Office products. Now, computer users can access Linux OS for free to run their computers, and Google Drive does everything the pricey Office program does- maybe not as easily, but for free. As I was perusing the internet for this blog post, I found a new suite of tools that I have fallen in love with! GoConqr is an educational platform on which users can create learning aids such as flashcards, mind maps, presentations, and more for free. For companies and institutions that want to create online courses and more robust resources, there is a Pro version. You can check out all the plans here. However, I joined with the Basic account, referred 3 co-workers and was bumped up to the Basic+ edition, which has all the functionality I need. If I wanted to get rid of ads and make my assets private, I can pay $21.95 for the year. I wanted to find a tool that would allow the teachers I coach to create quizzes that would prepare students for their Milestones test. On the Milestones there are questions that require selecting more than one answer, questions that are provided based on a student’s response to a previous question, and questions that require students to use the computer’s mouse. Google Survey and Microsoft Forms cannot do all of these types of questions. Initially, I looked at Zoho for a tool to use to create mock Milestones questions and quizzes. I found their survey tool Zoho Survey. I am super impressed with the survey tool because of a variety of different types of answer formats an author can use to solicit data. (check out the awesome survey I crafted as I explored Zoho). Students using this tool to collect data would fall in the ‘analysis’ level of Blooms Taxonomy because they would analyze the data they gathered and draw conclusions from it. Overall, I am very impressed with Zoho’s robust suite of tools, and I am impressed that they are free. I found GoCoqr when I was searching for an alternative to Zoho Challenge, a quiz creator, which is no longer supported by the company. My favorite GoCoqr tool is the quiz builder where teachers can use fill-in-the blank (also known as a cloze exercise) to measure student learning. Teachers with interactive whiteboards can use these assets as a station. Also, these resources work well with laptops, desktops, and touch devices. Below is an example of a cloze quiz I created. This tool is a great way for teachers to make quizzes that will prepare students for online testing situations.
A great tool for collaboration is GoConqr’s Mind Maps. Students can work together either synchronously or asynchronously just by sharing the link to the mind map. They can add pictures, notes, or documents to their mind map. This tool fall in the ‘create’ category within Blooms Taxonomy because it allows students to create an artifact using what they know to construct a unique product. With one click of the mouse, students can turn their brainstorming session into a set of notes. What a great way to gather ideas, information, and resources! Also, teachers can use this to build lesson plans, collaborate with PLCs, or develop collaborative content.
When I began creating a flashcard set in GoConqr, I could see how powerful it would be for special needs students. While flashcards are low on Bloom’s Taxonomy, falling in the recall category, special education students and English Language Learners greatly benefit from repeated exposure to new information over a period of time. Special needs students who need to learn vocabulary can use the flashcards on any device, and if access to technology is a concern, teachers can print out flashcards directly from the program. Additionally, these flashcards have a kinesthetic element to them when used with a touch device or interactive whiteboard which can engage special needs learners (“LEARNING STYLE (AUDITORY, VISUAL & KINESTHETIC) & DYSLEXICS,” 2017). It is amazing to see all the open educational resources available on the web. It is thanks to these sites that students can easily access tools to collaborate with anyone around the world. That’s power!
Reference
LEARNING STYLE (AUDITORY, VISUAL & KINESTHETIC) & DYSLEXICS. (2017). Retrieved February 23, 2017, from Dyslexia Victoria Online, http://www.dyslexiavictoriaonline.com/learning-style-auditory-visual- kinesthetic-dyslexics/ Reich, J., Murnane, R., & Willett, J. (2012). The state of Wiki usage in U.S. K-12 schools: Leveraging web 2.0 data warehouses to assess quality and equity in online learning environments. Educational Researcher, 41(1), 7–15. doi:10.3102/0013189x11427083
2 Comments
Tiffany Shoham Jones
2/25/2017 02:43:23 pm
Ana,
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Natasha
2/26/2017 02:05:20 pm
Hi Ana,
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