May 8 2007
TikiWiki Adventure Continues….
Well I knew it might be a little difficult and strange for my GCSE students to be using a wiki called CICT Wiki to produce collaborative work. BUT little did I realise how hard it would be to even get them to realise the value of being part of such a project. As I had expected after a whole year of doing individual GCSE projects always in a very competitive way, the notion or working together in small teams, helping a larger team to produce something seems utterly crazy to them.
I also realised how poor the students understanding is of plagiarism. Discussing the ideas of referencing and quoting information, has taken a great deal of time and continual reminding. Wiki syntax and the lack of a WYSIWYG editor has made this a little more difficult. But mostly the students do not really understand intellectual property rights because they are really not taught about these important issues anywhere in the curriculum.
Maybe Wiki’s and Blog’s maybe are not the right tool for collaborative work, was an inital thought? And an interesting article by Teemu suggests that maybe they are not. Blogs have a ‘me myself and I’ feel, while Wikis look at producing an artifact rather than actually discussing in a team about particular issues or problems. Definitely when it comes to ways of getting the students to think and discuss with each other, the TikiWiki they are using does not facilitate this. Although discussion does go on in the classroom itself. So maybe Teemu is right. Specifically in the fact that in trying to continually express that the Wiki they are producing is a public document, it is showing the limitations that a Wiki does not have an easy comment system which would show to students that ‘the others’ out there are listening and maybe even reading.
I chose to use Tikiwiki mainly due to me being able to host it on my server, and its immediacy of use and ability to look like a MediaWiki and of course Wikipedia. This has worked in one way, as I am able to demonstrate how a Wikipedia article is laid out and works. How referencing is needed, how the history works. And then lead this into the students knowledge and Wiki building. However I wonder if a hosted option such as WetPaint or WikiSpaces? would have been an easier option. Especially as TikiWiki’s forums and users are not nearly as active as say Moodle’s. Which has led to some weird problems including a login issue in which you now have to always click a remember me box to login? Anybosy out there that can help?
Hopefully next time, I will be able to comment on some of the work brought together so far by the students. Will it be productive, I am still waiting to see….
Recent Comments