Instructor's Notes

 

Research

"Before deciding to use any kind of technology for learning, it is critical for the instructor to determine learning goals for their students. If those goals include collaboration, discovery, sharing, reflection, and a combination of face-to-face and virtual activities, then a wiki may be the right tool for accomplishing this kind of work." (http://www.wildwiki.net/mediawiki/index.php?title=%E2%80%9CBuilding_Learning_Communities_with_Wikis%E2%80%9D)

 

 

As I restructured ENGL 1102 to get away from 1. lecture and 2. literature-based exams and to concentrate more on 1. composition and 2. reader response

I knew blogs figured into my goals. I wasn't sure how wikis would. As I started creating group work assignments for students to learn more about the novel, and as I progressed in the blogs and wikis class, it became evident that the wiki would be the best tool for the kind of collaboration I had in mind to allow students to think about and react to the literature in a way that made THEM the experts as opposed to looking to me to give them information. All the material presented in this wiki is a result of students who have had practice in a reader response structure to react to short stories. The class structure so far has been tripartite:

 

1. Read a story and for 5 of them, submit a journal in which you reflect on the story, what you liked/didn't like, what grabbed your attention, what confused you, etc.

2. Discuss the stories in class; often in groups and then a class-wide discussion

3. submit 3 blog posts after the discussion to reflect on major elements of the story, how your interpretations may have changed after discussion, or analysis of a particular part of the story.

 

This structure has prepared students for the group project related to this wiki.

This same site also offers some guidelines for implementing wikis (or any technology) in the classroom:

 

• In what kinds of activities will students engage as a part of this course—collaborating, writing, researching, creating, etc.?
  • collaborating, writing, editing
• What technologies are available, supported, or supportable at my institution?
  • currently wikis are not; therefore, we are using PBwiki as a host
• How much training will learners need to use the wiki? While Net Generation learners are generally more familiar and comfortable with web-based technologies, this does not imply that all students will master all technologies at the same speed.
  • Skills vary. Some students express fear and/or difficulties with blogs. Thus, the wikii will primarily be used in class time so I can be on hand to answer technical questions.

After developing a technology plan, the instructors move from designing the activities that the wiki will support to designing the interactions themselves. To advance wiki usage and encourage class participation, the instructor needs to make the expectations and rationale clear to the learners. As with any activity, learners must see how they themselves will benefit from using the tool. In the cases that we examined, learners benefited from wikis by:

• Learning new processes and tools for collaboration
• Creating team archives and electronic portfolios to serve them in future courses
• Developing a comprehensive view of their contributions to a project for evaluation during the current term

 

 

 

"In the best case, active collaboration on specific projects and across the site fosters feedback loops that keep the community engaged. Quality feedback from peers as well as instructors encourages greater use of the wiki and a higher level of acceptance and credibility. Participation in the online community becomes as valuable as the face-to-face community in a course. The feedback must be provocative and engaging enough for community members to feel that their work is being read and taken seriously. For example, in Philosophical Stages the instructors posted their reactions to student posts on the web and then analyzed their feedback with students during class. When students realized that their comments were being used as an assessment tool by the instructors as well as a source for formative feedback on the how the class should be structured, they were extremely motivated to participate even further" http://www.wildwiki.net/mediawiki/index.php?title=%E2%80%9CBuilding_Learning_Communities_with_Wikis%E2%80%9D

 

reaction? feedback and suggestions including spelling, layout, welcoming editing, increased documentation etc seem to go unheeded at this point. A few interested parties seemed willing to take on task of refactoring, but have failed to produce results.

 

Also, "However, in practice, wiki activity must still be encouraged or driven by an instructor, a leader, or a group of “advocates” within a community. In the case of a class, that role is usually held by the instructor or teaching team, who can require wiki participation as part of the student grade. In learning communities that are not bound by a credit-bearing course framework, the leader or advocate role is all the more essential particularly for long term sustainability. As with all Web 2.0 technologies, users need a reason to contribute and participate. In the cases examined above where many of the participants were students, it was often explicit recognition – or fear of retribution – that encouraged community members to contribute during the course. "  (same site)

 

That stinks, but it is the reality.

 

 

" . . . the intricate webs of user-generated material that constitute wiki writing reveal the presence of a multitude of individual authors, working according to patterns of collaboration that highlight the explicit parallels between the development of content and community. The talking spaces of wikis are often distinctly conversational, animated by personal, subjective dialogue that is archived to form rich bodies of ethnographic data. The same networks of commentary that provide the context for ideas also describe their authors, recording their knowledge and interests and, crucially, allowing them to articulate their own concerns regarding bias, accessibility and marginalization. The ability of wikis to provide spaces in which these issues are explicitly discussed, and to incorporate them as one of the many contexts that describe the production of material, offers a potential solution to a problem commonly encountered in the ethnographic studies of what Howard Rheingold termed “virtual communities,” namely that discussions concerning identity, extended to include conditions of participation, are restricted by the impossibility of achieving holistic descriptions of any informant, location or culture. ^[22] A study of the social makeup of wikis might then be conducted according to Christine Hine’s principles of “virtual ethnography,” which embrace these restrictions to suggest that “ethnographers of the Internet can use their own data collection practices as data in their own right,” ^[23] a self-reflexive process in which conclusions are shaped by the researcher’s own “intensive engagement with mediated interaction.” ^[24] The advantage of employing a self-reflexive ethnographic technique lies in the degree to which the activities of the researcher must inevitably reflect the same process by which wiki users come to understand themselves as writers., and to conceive of themselves as participants, readers or even researchers within a community of individuals." http://www.wildwiki.net/mediawiki/index.php?title=%E2%80%9CContent_and_Commentary:_Parallel_Structures_of_Organization_and_Interaction_on_Wikis%E2%80%9D (Lakeman chapter on Wild, Wild wikis)

 

 

Assign the reflection if it is not forthcoming. Reflective, self-analytical writing may regenerate the interest, affirm their power to revise and edit, and may be a good way to rekindle the flame after break.

 

at the very least, have them revise and record in the comments why they changed what they changed.

 

"Wikis are not, as commonly believed, uncontrolled and unfettered, with no sense of authorial or editorial control. On the contrary, most wikis have distinct hierarchies of users; each individual has a part to play. Though the memberships of these roles are not static, many of the positions themselves remain constant and often overlap: owner, editor, reviewer, proofreader, moderator, problem solver. Even defining and deciding what content stays and what goes is a communal decision, one that can be hotly debated. Like other collective systems, wikis depend on the shared responsibilities of the users who make up the community. Therefore, though different models exist for the creation and editing of wikis, they all rely in large part upon individuals working in harmony to create the best content they feel they can offer. "

Stephanie Vie and Jennifer deWinter

 

Yes, and perhaps this is part of the challenge--by sticking to traditional roles of naming who did what, everyone shies away from editing others' works. There is even a resistance amongst group members to edit work done by another member even if there is clearly erroneous information or blatant grammatical errors.  Perhaps the lesson is, as Vie and deWinter suggest, there needs to be a communal, not individual, decision for these revisions to occur. This occurred to me awhile ago: assign each group to revise one major part of the wiki. For example, group one can refactor the characters pages (merging, adding, deleting, formatting information as they deem fitting for the overall goal of the study guide. They are very familiar with sparknotes types of sites and can thus be relied upon to make sound decisions as to how to best present the information generated to date). New pages may be formed, the links should evolve--ah...let me go with this thought.... perhaps to stimulate this shift from creating to revising, I should start refactoring the characters pages as a model and to break the tradition of "group owned" content. Then each group can be assigned to a separate area of the study guide. They can be reintroduced to the concept of linking and can practice it by linking character names to thei character page I created from their content. Then, they can explore concepts for other necessary links/pages/shifts/revisions.

 

"They must also accept that the wiki document or entry does not belong to them individually, which in many ways goes against how students are trained via tests, grades, and papers to view their work" (same)

 

The authors also mention the fear of outside readers interfering with the space, the text. However, a new wiki space has to first garner the attention. Then, if it does, it seems that we should welcome input from those who feel compelled to interact with our creation. I would!

 

"Second, if we accept that knowledge is socially constructed and that writers act within discourse communities, then we must also accept that writing is a social rather than individual act—individual ownership of meaning, knowledge, and ideas, no longer makes sense. "

 

Hallelujah. This goes hand-in-hand with the reader-response based classroom I have fostered this semester. I have not lectured. I have given less handouts, threw out quizzes, and no tests have been administered. The students are writing 2-3 times as much and moved from reaction to analysis more seamlessly than ever. Many factors could contribute: new assignments (journals), more discussion, less focus on the "naming of the parts" of stories, etc., it seems ridiculously obvious to me that a reader-response class is only enhanced by collaborative writing. As we discussed in class, our experiences with a story are affected by experiences, knowledge of the history of the author and/or setting of the story, knowledge of the structures and technicques present in a story, symbols, etc. No one person usually has all that knowledge. The class is enhanced when multiple views and experiences are brough forward and discussed and tested for their validity or capability in helping the reader comprend the subtle nuances of the story (the significance of the four-line, four-stanza structure of "My Papa's Waltz" for example would have been completely missed if Chris didn't bring up his ballroom experience and his knowledge that the waltz is in 3/4 time--there are three short lines in each of the four lines of each stanza and so on). Collaborative writing is a natural complement to the reader-response classroom because multiple authors means multiple perspectives, experiences, and ideas.

 

 

 "A class based on writing a collaborative wiki might become a textual network that produces knowledge through writing" (http://www.wildwiki.net/mediawiki/index.php?title=%E2%80%9CWiki_as_Textshop:_Constructing_Knowledge_in_the_Electronic_Classroom%E2%80%9D)

 

I should ask my students if they feel this has happened. Do they feel that they have retained more information because they have participated in the creation of the very study material they would normally "access" themselves?

 

"commit to the wiki as the main project for the class; limit the subject area of the wiki; and develop a grading system that would account for this nontraditional model of writing.  (same)

 

This is one component I missed. Critical miss. Right now it's simply a group assignment which typically has counted for 5-10 points each time; I need to, next time, create a rubric just for the group content-creation.

 

The article also suggests that groups grade their own content. I have had the groups grade each other's overall contributions but didn't specify the content. Can still do this though.

 

 

 

 

Wiki Project Progress

progress report--what I see, what I like

 

The content is being added steadily; will have to refactor soon to make documents. Need to move from "place to post" to true collaboration

 

Would like to see comments before major changes are made. Perhaps some studio tours of similar sites and a collaborative goal setting session--now that the content is there, what do we do with it to make it better, readable, engaging, useful?

 

 

 

 

Stuff to Do

Add Material from Part IV

start cleaning up site (formatting, layout, acknowledgements--may need some sort of template)

add iamages

start linking with WikiWords

Formally introduce wiki to students in class 3/5/08

next session: each group post answer to one area. Then other groups edit, add, delete, etc. 

FIX QUOTATIONS/DOCUMENTATION

Add new pages--one for each character for sure. One for each setting.

combine similar themes with extended, detailed explanations and quotations for support.

 

 

Outside Resources

links here to videos, author information, criticisms of the book, etc. Set this up as separate pages? at least one separate page

 

 

OtherObservations

Wish pbwiki utilized WikiWords (auto linking)

pages feel "small" and clunky...design-wise, how can I combat this? Font options are limited: Tahoma is best for online readability, but that is not an option.

3/4/08: all part I materials are online as of now, the frontlawn is pretty much cleaned up and contains important "how to use" info

 

refactored character page as a model then group 4 assignment has them thinking about what they will refactor for 5th assignment; will also have more material posted around that time.

 

Decided to add annotated bibliography information to the site. 

 

According to the Chronicle article linked on Dr. M's page, my audience is the least prepared to handle what they're doing. http://mcmorgan.org/blog/?p=144

 

On other hand, took a look at litwiki and may use it in class today.

 

 

 

 

 

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