Are wikis a reliable medium for education? As an educator, my first inclination would be an emphatic “no.” However, I recently ran across an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education that challenged my preconceptions. 1» After reading and thinking through the article I must first state that there is a huge difference between Wikipedia and a student created wiki-textbook. One is community regulated, and as we all know must be examined and used with care, 2» the other is also community regulated; yet to students, at least according to the article, it is more reliable. This is not to say that a student created wiki-textbook is superior to the standard textbook, or to Wikipedia—all three by the way contain errors. The wiki-textbook is a product of education, this aspect allows for it to stand above other forms of similar media for a few reasons: 1) people tend to prefer reading and trust (or distrust) research from someone they know; 2) research in educational settings tend to be in areas of interest, therefore more care is often taken to present findings accurately (albeit often biased); and as the article pointed out 3) peer-to-peer learning can take place.
It is this last aspect, of peer-to-peer education, which I would like to focus on. The notion of creating an environment where peers teach each other has lodged itself in my mind for quite some time now. The problem always comes back to reliability and it is for this reason sites like Wikipedia (and similar) are often looked down upon. Yet, interaction with peers is an essential and often overlooked facet of education that needs to be utilized—especially in a digital age where people are choosing to interact less and less and become more secluded. Back in 2004, Korby Parnell wrote an excellent article 3» on the coming changes that wikis will bring to society. More important though, is the way he defined wikis. Parnell likened a wiki to the German notion of Wunderkammern, or “a cabinet of wonders.” This idea carries both community and personal characteristics. Think of a wiki (or even a blog) like a personal museum/library that is open to the public and completely searchable (and in some cases indexable).
Now take Parnell’s insight and add in the aspect of education. The result is the possibility for an individual’s “cabinet of wonders” to not only be accessible to others but for it to be a mode of teaching to others. This I believe is the next educational step, incorporating a web 2.0 aspect with peer-to-peer learning. It makes you wonder what new technologies will allow this avenue to come to fruition.
1. O’Shea, Patrick, Peter Baker and Jennifer Kidd. “Let A Thousand Wikibooks Bloom.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, Vol. 55, No. 14 (http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i14/14a02902.htm), November 2008.
2. Concerning Wikipedia, a good and well-balanced overview of strengths and weaknesses may be found by Ken Hunt, “The Wikipedia Problem” Globeandmail.com (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20071009.urc-wikipedia2-1016/BNStory/education), October 2007.
3. Parnell, Korby. “Wiki Theory.” Flexwiki (http://www.flexwiki.com/default.aspx/FlexWiki/WikiTheory.html), March 2004.
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While I don’t think the usability of Wiki’s is there yet I do think that they will have a lot of use in the years to come. I think done right this tool can encourage collaboration and interaction between students and make information sharing more interesting and engaging and for teachers this may create a good evaluation tool.
One of my university profs started doing something that I’ve found interesting. Within his class there is a final group assignment, through the use of Google docs collaborative documents (similar to wiki’s) groups are encouraged to share and edit each others information and at the end of it all based on each members revisions to the paper the professor is able to judge each person’s contribution. I’ve had a few frustrations in using this but I felt it added another dimension to the assignment.
Kevrichard,
Thanks for sharing. You mentioned that you had a few frustrations with the project… I’m curious, were those frustrations due to the software being too cumbersome, or on the collaborative end (everyone editing and revising)?
Mostly the software itself, its still not as feature rich or user friendly compared to MS Word/Excel.I have had group frustrations as well, there still needs to be a basis of group cooperation and communication for something like this to work.
What features do you believe would help or enhance a collaborative web assignment?
[...] be considered one of those sources. This is not the first time I have thought about Wikipedia (see The Wiki as an Educational Tool), nor do I suspect it will be the last. The topic has arisen again after viewing a 2006 clip from [...]