As part of the Group Assignment 4 worksheet, students were asked questions to reflect on the state of the wiki, students were asked questions about the usability and function of the wiki. Their comments were posted to individual pages, but I have moved them here to minimize the page length of the FrontPage.

 

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These are the comments that were originally posted to the FrontPage:

 

Erica

Mar 31, 2:04 pm

From looking at the Tess part of this site, I would find this information a little bit confusing. It is still in the early part of getting organized and not all of the information is in the right areas yet. As far as formatting goes, I think it is easy and simple to follow, which I like. If I was an outside reader, I would like to use this site to help study for the book that I am reading.

 

Randy and Rochanda

Mar 31, 2:18 pm

I would utilize this site, because it gives good details on characters, settings, plot, and etc. The sidebar would be the most useful thing on there, and also the links for the names. Some of the pages don't really flow with each other, like different fonts and sizes. Its a bit plain. Yes, it would if they would like more information.

 

Jenny

Mar 31, 3:16 pm

I would use this site to my references for the novel. It shows alot of info that is useful to use. I would say the charcter page is the most useful page on here because that tells sooo much about the book compared to the other pages. Its a huge part!

 

Brock, Jessica, Cassidy

Mar 31, 4:39 pm

We would utilize this wiki, because we've had to pick apart the novel as a whole. The themes page would be the most useful to us. It could help us realize something we've missed during our own reading, and it also shows other peoples perspectives on the novel and events that occur. This might encourage outside readers if they are looking for a quick way to cheat. To stop this we believe it should not be posted on a wiki where everyone has access to what we say and think.

 

Brandon. Kari, Kaylin, Andrea

Mar 31, 8:21 pm

I would use this site to find information on this book if I could find it. It does have detailed and specific information about the book that is classified. I think the organization of the sidebar makes the site easy to find information on the book.If someone wants to find out about the novel, this gives them as much information as could be simply found. Outside readers would have a predisposition of whether they would want to dig for more information, so it could help some. The novel is very self explanatory, and the main thing that someone could research to find out more is Afghan customs, which we aren't experts on.

 

Brian C

Apr 2, 12:15 pm

I would use this site to get information about the books. this wiki is organization and i would you this site just because of that and from the reading of the book this site is not lying so that is another helpful use to me. I think that the Characters page is great and i don't think anything is wrong with it because it needed the update and i think it looks better now.

 

Christina

Apr 2, 12:49 pm

Our group would probably use this website as long as we knew it was a credible source. It is useful to look at the definitions of charachters, and conflicts going on in the story. Since Tess can be somewhat hard to understand this cite would be a good refresher. I think after we redo the study guide for Tess and make it more organized it would then be a lot more beneficial for others to use as well. We need to work on tweeking the wiki to make it easier to find information about the novel. In order for outside readers to really understsand we would need to change the format so they can look up information easily without having to dig to hard. 

 

Jeremiah

Apr 2, 3:14 pm

I would probably use this site for some of the information about characters and plots and settings. The descriptions on these seem to be useful. I think it will reach outside of this class if people look into different sites about this book. I have never tried to access notes of any kind for any book so I do not know how easily this information should be to access. I would think if this site is easy to access, it will not be a problem for others to find and utilize.

 

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These are the posts that were originally on the KiteCharacters and TessCharacters pages.

 

Devin K

We feel that the new version of the characters page, since it is more condensed, somehow loses the original uniqueness of how it flowed. This uniqueness is now more or less gone to a somewhat robotic and pre-fabricated format. Also, by having our names absent we are losing some sort of recognition of the parts that we have contributed. Who's going to receive credit for our work? With it being cleaned up, though, there is significantly less repetition. Now, we are able to see one character's analysis instead of seeing bits and pieces from many groups and trying to piece it together. 

 

Jenny

Mar 31, 3:18 pm

I am a little mad. We did all that work for nothing. The names and alot of information is gone. The only benefit is its not the same thing being said over and over again.

 

Brock, Jessica, Cassidy

Mar 31, 4:42 pm

We feel that this new revision of the characters page is awful! It took us a lot of time to write certain things we thought were important about each character and now each one is summerized into one short sentence.  

 

Brock, Jessica, Cassidy

Mar 31, 4:47 pm

This is our second choice. We feel that a lot of information was lost during this revision, it would be better to have something along the lines of a paragraph per person.

 

Brandon

Mar 31, 8:30 pm

It looks more user friendly for a reader.The Characters are only described once, and that is easier to read than trying to decipher the notes of multiple groups ideas. The names of who wrote about the characters are missing, and that looks more professional and user friendly for a reader. Brandon, Kari, Kaylin, Andrea

 

Jennifer B

Mar 31, 9:41 pm

Remember, though, the purpose of the wiki is to share and collaborate. Share your knowledge. Collaborate as a group, but now as a class. Are names necessary to do this? Is it really "for nothing" since you've received scores and, more importantly, knowledge? Does taking names away really change what was accomplished here?

 

kayla

Apr 2, 3:17 pm

I don't mind that the same thing isn't being said twenty times over, although, all of us have worked very hard as groups to come up with our own answers and I can see how not being acknowledged for them is a bit frustrating. What bothers me the most is that it doesn't seem collaborated because the descriptions are very short. If all of our opinions were posted in one area, I think, that would make more sense. It sort of feels like only groups' opinion is picked for each character and not all of them. 

 

Erica

March 31, 2:08 pm

After looking at the new character page for The Kite Runner, I think it is much easier to get information about that specific character and less confusing. However, I dont know if I like how all of the information from each group is all put together without any credit given. It appears to be more like Sparknotes this way, but it seems to be adding a lot of work into the whole process.

 

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The groups then chose their top three picks for "reformatting" and/or redesigning pages in this wiki. They were also assigned to write a brief proposal of what they would do to change the page. Based on their preference and their ideas, I've assigned each group a page to work on as the Final Group Project instead of doing the planned in-class presentations.

 

 

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