Wikis

I first read what our weekly discussion was about I had no idea what Wikis was. The only thing that I could relate it to was Wikipedia just because I think wiki is a wierd word. I discovered through an article what exactly Wikis is, how it came about, and how it is used for online education. The article was written by Naomi Augar, Ruth Raitman, and Wanlei Zhou who are professors at the School of Information Technology. The school is in Victoria, Australia. Anyway, these people go on to explain that Wikis is a fully editable websites. Anyone can visit, read, re-organize and updat the structure and content of a Wiki as they see necessary. The only thing a web user needs to get involved with a wiki is a web browser. Wikis is a collarboration in an online environment and is also used for online education. Wiki projects illustrate how elearning practitioners can and are moving beyond their comfort zone by using Wikis to enhance the process of teaching and learning online. An example of an "open-editing" online environment is Wikipedia, a encyclopedia that has been updated and edited by many different web users. Another program called Computer Supported Callaborative Learning (CSCL) is a development of collaboration by meand of technology to augment education and research. CSCL says that students use Wikis to create a set of documents that reflect the shared knowledge of the learning group they are in. The article further goes on to tell how exactly a wiki page is set up and how it actually works. When comparing Wikis there are alike and unique features with tons of information. The rest of the article is about the e-learning at Deakin University which works with the School of Information Technology. The university offers dual mode delivery of higher education degrees to students. The school promotes online learning and it is fascilitated by WebCT Vista. THe WebCT Vista includes bulletin boards and synchronous chat rooms to engage with the online learning.

How does this article and Wikis relate to learning and education. Well, like the article said Wikis is a collabaration in an online environment. So that alone sums up that Wikis can be used for online education. Just like our class is online education. We use blogger.com to communicate, but we could use Wikis to communicate and even make chatrooms with bulletin boards. I can say that I never realized that Wikipedia was edited all the time. I guess if I wanted to change something on a Wikipedia site I could. Like for example what the definition of the word "chat room" means. So does that mean that if anyone can edit Wikis that Wikipedia does not really contain true detailed information? Who can say that Wikipedia contains only assumptions? I think that further research should be done on Wikis. I mean I know what Wikis are and how they work now, but are they truly being helpful for learning strategies?

http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/perth04/procs/augar.html