TechEd #1: Wikis

Debbie Faires of San Jose State University helped me understand some good uses for wikis. I currently use wikis only for quiz development (students add and edit questions, from which I choose for the quiz if they do enough work!). I began this last year using pbwiki (see the original wiki we made by using “history103” as the password). Now I use the wiki inside of Moodle.

Debbie noted that some of the best wikis have WYSIWYG editors, like Seedwiki which has a formatting bar instead of code. For most wikis, you must know the syntax to create links. She was fond of Google Docs, where each user is color coded for easy reference, and the wiki opens automatically in edit view. Flickr, I was reminded, can be used to have students annotate images easily, as a collaborative project. And Bubbleshare (which I learned about at a WOW2 podcast) can create slideshows to share. Debbie also reintroduced me to Zoho.com, which has chat and show applications as well as wikis.

One use is document creation collaboration among faculty. It is recommended that one not use the word “wiki”. I already violated this tenet when MiraCosta developed its Technology Plan in a wiki on my advice, using the defunct schtuff.com, now absorbed by pbwiki. I realize now that more people would have been less afraid to use the sucker if I’d called it a “collaborative document” or just “a document we can all edit”.

But the most fascinating aspect of the presentation was the usage tips. Here’s what I can do with a wiki:
* Appointment signup — everyone can see everyone else’s time slots, and sign up for meetings or office hours
* Ongoing collections — sustained collections of information that stay and are updated from semester to semester
* Podcast editing — students add time markers to class podcasts to make it easier for all students to scan to a particular topic
* Assignment sharing — students add their assignment and all appear on one page, making a large document collection
* User guides — students creating user guides (to the Course Management System, for example) to help other students
* Student book reviews — students can share individual readings with others
* Lecture links — students can create and update links that have gone down or moved
* Spreadsheet creation — the online form of each student or group giving a report on one aspect, but all are responsible for learning the whole thing (the example was each group being assigned a particular nation and reporting on working conditions)
* Resource page — student-created and edited collection of readings

One instructor assigned students to report individually on the conglomerated knowledge represented in the wiki, and assigned individual grades this way.

Debbies presentation wiki (of course!) can be found at TechEdWiki.pbwiki.com.