Supporting Collaborative Activities Using Wikis

Supporting collaborative activities using Wikis SUMMER SEMINAR SERIES 2008 ENHANCING TEACHING THROUGH TECHNOLOGY Nitin Parmar Learning Technologist [ Thursday 22 May 2008 ]

Been using wikis since 2005, to serve a variety of functions

I like all things “Web 2.0”

Developing interest in social software

Who am I?

Key Questions

What is a wiki?

How do wikis work?

How are wikis being used in a learning and teaching context?

Is it possible to classify different types of wiki use? What can we learn from any classification?

A wiki is… a website

A wiki is… a social website

A wiki is… a social website that you [or anyone] can edit

A wiki is… a social website allowing for group collaboration

Finding out more

How many people

know what a wiki is?

have used a wiki?

currently manage a wiki?

The first wikis appeared in the mid-1990s http://www.flickr.com/photos/kables/1220574200/

Started in 2001

8th most visited site

10 million articles

230 languages

Openly editable

Freely licensed

Wikipedia Source: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/events/2008/04/conference08/angelabeesley.pdf Wikipedia in English: http://en.wikipedia.org

How do wikis work? the participants “ Formulate a list of uses of wikis at the University of Bath” the goal wiki.bath.ac.uk the tool

How do wikis work? wiki.bath.ac.uk

“ Formulate a list of uses of wikis at the University of Bath”

Department of Computer Science

Department of Physics

Department of Mathematical Sciences

revise/edit contribute discuss delete reference

Source: What Is A Wiki? , http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI0626.pdf

In a wiki you can… Insert images Attach documents Link to internal & external pages Apply metadata Run inline macros Import RSS feeds Export wiki pages Insert LaTeX markup Compare document versions Insert tables

What does a wiki look like?

Most wikis will have an Edit tab at the top

Editing is done using a “WYSIWYG” editor

using <html> or [WikiMarkup]

There is often functionality to aid navigation

Starting a wiki

Moodle Wiki moodle.bath.ac.uk

Confluence wiki.bath.ac.uk

University of Bath hosted

pbWiki

WikiSpaces

Wikia

Consumer use [free]

Atlassian

Enterprise use [paid]

Going a stage further…

Kerika - a graphical wiki

Useful for mindmapping

But… it is “client” based

Can you trust user generated content?

Trusting the process is vital

Preliminary negotiations may be required before content can be added, edited and removed

But remember…

Everything is reversible

Changes are transparent

And…

Staff take ownership of their own sections

Cooperative authoring

Ease of creation of content [“cut and paste”]

Keyword searching

Resource is accessible from anywhere

Ease of maintenance - always up to date

Customisable publication for staff and students

Individual pages can be printed out;

Mirror of the entire wiki is available as a PDF… and is available for download

Why are wikis significant?

Powerful, flexible, simple communication tool

Grow and evolve as a direct result of user-generated content

Allow for peer-supported online collaboration e.g. group coursework related activites that might be harder to do face-to-face

[for a learning and teaching context]

But…

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thewishy/108429739/

Choosing who has access

Changes can be recovered

Every revision of a page is logged

Encouraging collaboration

An online, wiki-based environment can enable…

copying transmission recording comparison asynchronicity structure storage

Wiki use at the University of Bath

Moodle

164 wikis have been created across a range of Moodle courses

Confluence

170 wiki spaces, 37 of which have anonymous access enabled

3000 actual page views per day

150 pages edited per day

Additionally…

A number of projects will use externally hosted wikis

Scenarios of use http://www.flickr.com/photos/darryl_fowler/2111091799/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/malingering/1100950212/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/8ballofwakefield/513907976/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/s3a/187594677/

To support group coursework

Enabling online discussion in one central space

Recording of conversations and tracking evolution of thought

Providing a space for collaborative working and peer-review

To support research groups

Planning meeting agendas and recording minutes in real-time

Listing ideas for presentations

Keeping research documentation up to date

Team Portal Recently updated Micro blog  Twitter Social bookmarking  del.icio.us Team presentations  Slideshare

Help! http://www.bath.ac.uk/lmf/

A collaborative activity using the Moodle wiki. [First year UG students in the Department of Education]

Levels of collaboration most collaborative least collaborative [this is cooperative] [as is this!] [must cooperation and collaboration go hand in hand?] LMF help PGCE handbook Team Portal First year UG wiki Research project

Are we able to classify the different types of wikis, in particular, in an educational coxtent? I’ll give it a go! TAL-ELHASID E., MEISHAR-TAL H. (2006). Models for Activities, Collaboration and Assessment in Wiki in Academic Courses. The Open University of Israel GEORGIA TECH (2000). A Catalog of CoWeb Uses. Collaborative Software Lab, College of Computing, Georgia Tech. MEIJAS U. (2006) Wiki Evaluation Methods. http://blog.ulisesmejias.com

A TYPE OF WIKI ACTIVITY Individual Working alone – sometimes in isolation - to capture lecture notes for personal use, for example. Not necessarily public acccess or consumption. Confluence offers every user such a wiki. Don’t forget to adjust the privacy settings if you’d like to keep content private!

B TYPE OF WIKI ACTIVITY Cooperation Wiki users are beginning to work with or alongside others. The intention is to expose work to others. People can leave feedback in the form of comments. They are unlikely to be given access rights to edit the text. An example of this might be the e-Learning team wiki, where one person might take ownership of a particular page, and discussion follows in the relevant area.

C TYPE OF WIKI ACTIVITY Cooperation and Collaboration This is the category that group coursework perhaps fits in best [at the initial stage]. The aim is to work, with others, to create a shared resource for others. In the unit CM20168 Programming Languages IV, groups of student create wikis about programming languages as part of coursework. This is then exposed to the rest of the cohort to use for exam revision.

D TYPE OF WIKI ACTIVITY Cooperation and collaboration and peer assessment Users of the wiki will be working alone or together, with the intention of creating a shared resource, but in addition, introducing the notion of peer assessment. The best example of this is probably Wikipedia, where all articles are freely editable, but maintain by a community of “Wikipedians”. But… how do we create an environment where peer assessment is seen to be acceptable?

A Cooperation and collaboration and peer assessment Individual B C D Collaboration Cooperation and collaboration TYPE OF WIKI ACTIVITY

level of collaboration low high student confidence with the technology and process tutor confidence with the technology and process low low high high Cooperation Cooperation and collaboration Cooperation and collaboration and peer assessment Developing the use of wikis intervention point intervention point [© 2008 Nitin Parmar and Andy Ramsden]

An alternative?

Create documents, spreadsheets and presentations online

Collaboration in real time – process can be supported by online audio/video conferencing software, such as Skype.

Google Docs

http://docs.google.com

http://www.flickr.com/photos/balsamia/2439567770/ Questions?

Summer Seminar Series 2008

Enhancing Technology Through Technology

http://tasterseries.wordpress.com

Using Podcasting in Learning and Teaching

Supporting collaborative activities using wikis

Exploring Social Bookmarking

Text messaging (SMS) for collaborative learning: reaching out and tuning in

Using Skype and other web-conferencing tools to support off campus learners

Nitin Parmar Learning Technologist [email_address] +44 (0)1225 384 392 Colligo: Reflections of a Learning Technologist http://colligo.wordpress.com tag: eatbath-present08 LMF download: http://www.bath.ac.uk/lmf/download/21635