Discussion group A3: "Beyond the Needs of the Student"
Discussion group A3 has the theme "
Beyond the Needs of the Student".
Suggested topics for discussion:
- Who are the organisations, departments and institutions which have an interest in wikis?
- How would the various organisations benefit from the provision of wikis (as opposed to individual members of the organisation)?
- What requirements do the organisation have (as opposed to individual members of the organisation)?
- What conflicts may there be between the needs of users and organisations?
- What other key issues need to be addressed related to organisational needs?
Report
1.
Besides use in teaching, what other key user groups may have an interest in wikis?
a. Learners
b. Publishers
c. Industry
d. Tool for innovation (eg "brain-dumping" [like brainstorming])
e. Research for academics working on the same theme
f. Course development teams
g. Getting academics to collaborate with users
h. External examiners (eg if students are using wikis then the external examiner would like to look at the wiki
i. support services (eg central administration, IT support)
2. How would these various groups benefit from the provision of wikis? - a. + b. we can do these while we are dispersed by place and time
- a. - i. communication: not enough going on in institutions generally - can a wiki help create a shared collective understanding?
- collaboration (esp. a g h)
- after a year - archive
- the archive could either be added or left
- accessible, easy to use (easier than discussion board)
- comparison w. discussion groups and blogs (wiki is somewhere between a discussion group - which is a group activity with nobody having ownership, and a blog - which is owned by an individual but can be commented on - ie the wiki is shared but has some personal ownership too - like this comment is mine
but because this is a wiki, anyone can edit it - so there is also a need for trust and maybe 'rules of engagement')
[but see also a different relative placing suggested in 3 below: maybe blogs/wikis/discussion-boards form a 'triangle' rather than a 'straight line'? PA] - can express... ???? [can anyone complete this reported item?]
- wikis: can be more anonymous than discussion board, meaning that at surface level content is anonymous but 'behind the scenes' content may be attributable
- people unsure about discussion: those less confident; could be encouraged: like in this room! eg, "I wanted to say this too!"
3. What requirements do these groups have?
- spectrum of public expression [but see also 2 above]
- blogs: one-sided
- wikis: no-sided / all-sided
- bulletin-board (discussion): somewhere in between
- need something that would do all of these things?
4. What conflicts may there be between the needs of these groups of users (with the needs of the student user?)
- how open should a wiki be?
- in a wiki: an idea can flow from ...
- initial concept ->
- discussion ->
- finished product/idea
- can be open to many or to specified users
- could be hidden or frozen
- students may not be pleased about all of their work being "stuck into the institution"
Q1 Acceptable behaviour: try to keep as free as possible. Different requirements (eg placement)
Q2 Student feedback: in USA it has [been tried?] but it's early days
Could a wiki be used for getting student feedback?
- potential can-of-worms re what students might say
- presenting it as a focus group rather than a questionnaire may be a solution?
requirements/conflicts: different style of approach
- different tasks: rules of how to engage: do we want just lists or paragraphs?
- support and basic skills of students in order to use wikis
Appropriate wiki use
- where, what and how? need to be stated
- Danger of using wiki for everything (like email - and drowning in inappropriate uses!)
- documents on a shared drive was offered as a solution to one potential wiki idea: so don't forget other options (rather than "what can we a wiki do for us?"
- are there other structures that can complement the wiki? (eg messenger, blog, talking!)
- private vs public (eg VLE)
- students often elect to use them in their own way: subvert that which is available
- the technology should be secondary to learning
- the process should involve other tools too, depending on the context
- individual work of students (vs collaborative)
- who did the work? attributing it: you can see within a wiki
- conflict between open and closed, controlled manner in which a wiki can be used
- there may be a transition, eg initially closed then can be open to the world
- eg team projects with individual assessment or reflective report which cites the collaborative work
- tools: wiki, blog, discussion, Word document, e-portfolio
- technology is converging, but may be a conflict in any transition
- one solution would be to negotiate at the start what would be used
- conflict between educational use and the use in commerce
5. What other key issues need to be addressed related to the needs you have identified?
- establishing degree of openness vs privacy
- wikis need to be supported by other technologies
- wikis are "flavour of the month"
- which came first "the technology or the problem"
- a wiki => "to wiki": new vocabulary
- supporting the process
- an emerging practice:
- eg "put it on web" was a solution: is it now "put it on a wiki"?
- 'Dilbert pointy-head' but don't use this objection in a stifling manner
- how about doing the whole VLE as a wiki? :) [debate here!]
- balance between institutional investment of VLE vs a wiki (eg we've spent the money so we may have to use it)
6. Additional points - how should we include publishers?
- how do we get people to adopt?* Ideas, please
- it's supposed to be intuitive
- not everyone is web-savvy
* as opposed to have it forced upon them
Participants (please add your name/contact if you were in this discussion group)
Kim Whittlestone,
RVCFrances Bell,
Salford Business SchoolPeter Adamson,
University of St Andrews
Exploiting The Potential Of Wikis