Wiki

From Elearning

A wiki (from the Hawaiian word for "quick") is a web-based environment for collaborative writing and editing a network of hyperlinked pages. Both the content and the structure of a wiki is produced by its users in the course of using the site. The most well-known wiki is Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia created and updated entirely by its users.

The content of most pages in a wiki can be modified by any user, provided they are authorised to do so. In addition, the structure of the wiki itself can be modified by creating new pages or new links between pages. New pages can be created simply by creating a provisional link from an existing page.

Because it is always subject to further revision by the author or other users, what is presented on a wiki is always a work-in-progress. It might help to think of a wiki as a collective mind-map, which is being simultaneously expanded and refined with each edit.

"The basic thing I think makes it work is turning from a model of permissions to a model of accountability."

- Jimbo Wales, founder of Wikipedia.

Contents 1 What is it 2 What's it good for 2.1 Everyday / intuitive uses 3 Getting started 3.1 Using an existing wiki 3.2 Creating your own wiki 3.3 Public wiki services (a.k.a. "wikifarms") 4 Getting people to participate 5 "Siblings" or similar tools 6 Risks / Abuses 7 How it works (briefly) 8 References / Comments

What is it

For a good introduction to what Wikis are and what they can do, have a look at the YouTube video: Wikis in Plain English by CommonCraft (3:52 minutes)

What's it good for

Everyday / intuitive uses

Sites like Wikipedia.org effectively function as models of collective knowledge construction (or knowledge-capture, depending on your epistemological point of view).

Because of their unfinished (unfinishable) nature, a fully-fledged wiki lends itself best to an ongoing projects with a sizable community of committed users.

The following characteristics of wikis may be significant in an educational setting:

1. Wikis maximize interplay
2. Wikis are democratic
3. Wikis work in real time
4. Wiki technology is text-based
5. Wikis permit distributed authorship
6. Wikis promote negotiation
7. Wikis endorse particular ways of writing
8. Wikis permit collaborative document editing, or open editing
9. Wikis complicate the evaluation of writing
10. Wikis make feedback intensely public and potentially durable
11. Wikis work on volunteer collaboration
12. Wikis [can] enable complete anonymity

From dossiers practiques by Renée Fountain [1], via Steve Warburton [2]

Getting started

Using an existing wiki

This involves 5% effort in finding an appropriate wiki for your students to participate in and 95% effort in preparing them and guiding them through a progression from reader to editor to writer.

There is some advice available on encouraging participation in a wiki at Wikipatterns.

Creating your own wiki

WebCT CE6 does not offer a wiki tool.

However, the META centre at the University of Sydney can provide wiki facilities for staff in the Arts Faculty.

Public wiki services (a.k.a. "wikifarms")

Wikispaces - Password protection available. Word-like (WYSIWYG) editor. Free.

PbWiki - Password protection available. Word-like (WYSIWYG) editor. Free.

See the references list below for more wikifarms.

Getting people to participate

There are a range of things you can try to encourage students (or whoever) to participate in your wiki. Dave Foord [3] suggests the following strategies, which make up the mnemonic: STOLEN. It's not a very meaningful mnemonic, but every little bit helps!

• Specific overall objective

  Clear objective for the wiki, understood by all. Avoid too general a topic.

• Timely

  Definitive times for different 'stages' of use

  Definite end point - even if left open after

• Ownership

  People need to feel that they 'collaboratively own' the wiki

• Localised objective

  Some structure of what is expected

  Starting points for editing

• Engagement rules

  Who can edit. Which parts they can edit. Acceptable and unacceptable use.

• Navigation

  Clear and simple navigation structure

"Siblings" or similar tools

Taken separately, wiki pages are very much like sharable, web-based text documents, e.g. Google Docs or Writeboards. There are two subtle differences between these web-based documents and wiki page.

1. Web documents are individual, self-contained documents, whereas each wiki page is part of a hyperlinked network of pages,
2. Wikis have an open-ended editing process, whereas web documents are more geared toward developing a finished product, often for publication.

There are different responsibilities involved in starting a web-based text document and starting a wiki page. On the one hand, one is not expected to maintain connections between web-based text documents. On the other, abandoning such a document does not undermine the integrity of a larger structure, as it may in the case of a wiki page.

Risks / Abuses

A big commitment

Starting a wiki is a risky business. It requires a solid core of committed users who are prepared to commit to the development of the content and structure of the wiki over time. A little like a garden, wikis must be tended or they will rot, leaving only a mess of pages half-full of unsatisfying content.

Since a wiki is a truly social phenomenon, which only thrives so long as it holds appeal and stimulation for its users, a better analogy might be a town. Towns require a critical mass of community-minded people to survive and the same is true of a wiki. For these reasons, there has been little interest in creating wikis for particular units of study. A semester may simply not be long enough, and a single class may simply not be big enough to sustain a wiki.

Nonetheless, there are promising educational opportunities to be exploited by encouraging students to participate in an existing wiki like Wikipedia.

Wikitext

The other barrier to using a wiki in an educational context is the need to familiarise students with the unusual formatting syntax, or "wikitext". See below for some advise on overcoming this.

How it works (briefly)

At its heart, a wiki is a database whose content can be edited via a web-browser. This content is stored as wikitext, but can be converted to html by the wiki's engine for display in a browser.

In some wiki systems (like the Mediawiki [4] system behind this site) wiki content is displayed within a frame where users can access additional functions, such as discussion pages, user preferences, page histories, etc.

However, it is worth repeating that a wiki is useless without a dedicated community of users to sustain it and make it grow.

References / Comments

Using wikis in teaching

Stewart Mader's book: Using wiki in education (2007) - sections are available free online

Dave Foord's Basic principles of making a wiki work in education - Outlines the STOLEN check list.

Wikis and collaboration: approaches to deploying wikis in educational settings by Steven Warburton

Using Wiki in Education

M/Cyclopedia of New Media at QUT: An example of using wikis in university education

MayTheTechBeWithYou: some ideas on using wikis with K-12 school children from the Trussville City Board of Education, Alabama

General info on Wikis:

Wikipedia entry on Wikis

Wikipedia's list of "wiki farms" offering wiki services (free and paid)

Wikipatterns, a site containing advice on how to encourage wiki adoption and use.