I have heard of wiki’s for a long time but never really had to be part of making one. Instead of having to research all of the components of Instructional Design, it was nice to have the work broken up amongst everyone and then read about their topics when they are finished. Focusing on just one piece also helps you learn more about the topic you chose. Collaborating on the group pages also is a great way to get more information on a topic since there are different perspectives and ideas coming together.
Writing together can be a great way of really analyzing the work you are doing. When someone contributes something, you are forced to read it and think about what else you can add and how you can expand on an idea. Being able to add media like images and videos to the information is also a great way to reinforce the ideas that are being discussed. It’s easy and convenient to do as well, people can contribute when it is convenient for them. You can comment or discuss pages while working on the project and again it doesn’t have to be when everyone else is online, they can check it at their convenience.
The trouble with doing collaborative work like this on the group pages is running into redundancy. If you did not contribute early to a page, then it would seem like there isn’t anything left to contribute and people repeat the information, but maybe just in a different way. As I said earlier it forces you to think about expanding an idea. With one of the pages (I think Kirkpatrick one), I tried to find more information but could find anything new that wasn’t already discussed. I did find a picture to represent the ideas, but that was it. When collaborating with people who have various schedules and different priorities, it is important to try to contribute early, otherwise it may seem like you do not know what else to contribute. It would have been better if we could have discussed who would do what. Like person A defines the concepts, person B does the strengths, C the weaknesses, D finds media, etc. I think in a face to face situation this would be easier, but with everyone doing this online and at different times, the organization of the work was scattered.
I almost used this in my class but I wasn’t comfortable with it yet to do it, but now I think I am ready (my next post will be a reflection on this process with my students). Once we get our sets of laptops, I plan on doing it because right now our library computers aren’t the greatest. For biology, I thought about having students work together to create pages about the different relationships we see in ecosystems. Each group would get a different type of relationship and have to describe the relationship and find examples of this occurring. My students are still developing their technology skills so I would have to teach them how to put pictures and videos on the pages. For physical science, our next unit is electricity and I thought about having them research the different ways we generate electricity and report on it. I think this would be a great tool to use in the classroom to get the kids working together to research and find information and make something together. I also like the fact that you can see who contributed. This will make grading it easier and fair since you can see how much work each student did. Sometimes with group work, 1 or 2 students do all the work and won’t say anything about it. I can monitor their contributions.
I think there are many benefits to using wiki’s for collaborative work. Once people get used to the idea and the process, then it is an easy way to share information and put ideas together. There are many different types of wiki pages creators out there. Wikispaces is okay, I tried to create my own for my biology class, but I wanted to do more with the layout. Here’s a good source for finding a wiki site that suits your needs- Wiki Matrix.
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