2. What is a wiki?
Various names: wiki, WikiWikiWeb, Swiki, CoWeb, phpWiki, ...
First wiki from Ward Cunnigham
Installations at tecfa:
Swiki/CoWeb:
http://tecfa.unige.ch:8888/
2.1 Technical point of view
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collaborative web site
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every page can be edited by anyone (through simple HTML forms)
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simple mechanism for creating new pages
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formatting is being done through a simple text language inside the text (ex: *http://tecfa.unige.ch* makes a link in a swiki)
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every version of hypertext is stored and versions can be compared (diff)
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linking is done automatically on the server-side
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all pages are stored in a database
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is programmed in Squeak, Php, Perl, ... and for various platforms and OS
2.2 Conceptual point of view
The power of wiki is that is completely open and every page can be annotated by various persons and evolve with time which means 2 things:
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vulnerability
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no security (in a way)
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no synchronization checks (first submits, first saved)
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in case of a problem, admin or any user should fix it OR restore prom previous version
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flexibility
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no passwords (sort of)
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no firewalls
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democracy (teachers and students at the same level)
2.3 Educational point of view
Wikis have been used succesfully in education (Guzdial, 1999)
Exemple 2-1: Swiki/CoWeb by Collaborative Software Lab, Georgia Tech, last 4 years, more than 120 wikis
At Tecfa, we started with a pilot project for a biology class and we experiment with an embedded version of wiki (module) in a PostNuke portal for SEED project partners
For those interested in wikis in education a "must" is to read:
2.4 Uses in education
Research has shown that teachers and students can get very creative and develop innovative and very useful activities for learning (Collaborative Software Lab, 2000) inspired from constructivism and socio-constructivism like:
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Information sources (simple websites easily created)
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Student assignement hand-in (with the advantage of peer ratings)
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collaborative web-writing (to co-contsruct collective knowledge, KB)
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problem solving
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project spaces
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anchored collaboration (anchored newsgroup-like discussions for reviews), term invented by Turns and Guzdial
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focused discussions (forum-like discussions)
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case libraries (projects "Hall of Fame")
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cross class/courses projects (interdisciplinary projects)
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for community building among students ("Hot Lists", common interests, adventure games!)
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for learning to collaborate (to change the individualism culture of traditional instruction)
2.5 Problems, guidelines, resources
A. Problems, solutions (?)
Some common problems are:
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teachers don't have time to share their experiences
Solution:
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catalogs, knowledge bases, meta-wikis, Brown Bag Seminars :)
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collaboration is an important challenge, students don't know how to collaborate or resist to collaborate (especially from certain disciplines like engineering, math, comp. science). Result: either refuse to participate or participate to the extend required (Guzdial et al., 2002)
Solutions:
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Change student and faculty attitudes, curriculum, way of teaching
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Scaffolding! collaboration and collabarative learning are processes themselves that need to be learned. => take time to design the activities and scaffold all the way through!!!
B. Guidelines
Here are some advises that might help the organisation of an activity:
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period of open use (ex:a sandbox, movie reviews)
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introductory activities (ex: "who's who")
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not-required-but-useful activities to convince students for utility (discussions)
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closing activities (presentations, discussion, coll. book)
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extra credit opportunities (for motivation and enrich the case libraries)
C. Resources
Some of the Wiki variants that exist:
-- TIE
