donderdag, maart 15, 2007
Wiki and education
The most famous example of a wiki is wikipedia. The online encyclopedia allows for everybody to update or submit any article. It is available in a bunch of languages at this time and figures among the top 5 most popular sites. The software that is used for wikipedia is also available as open source in case you want to have one of your own. (www.mediawiki.org) Of course, there are many other open source or commercial wiki softwares available.
When I first learned how to work with a wiki I found it a quite frustrating experience. Somehow the navigation within a wiki is not something I find natural. I love a wiki page when I'm linked to it directly from another site or just to look up a particular definition or term. But I'm having trouble to find my way in a wiki documentation site.
One example of a wiki I wanted to mention here is TikiWiki, a wiki for eduction. It is mainly an initiative from Spain, but it shows ways that academics and school teachers are experimenting with wiki's.
The good about a wiki is also the bad: anyone can update it. Do you believe anyone saying anything? One of the founders of wikipedia is starting his own version now (can't even remember the name) where only authenticated users can edit articles, and where editors are paid for their contributions/reviews. He hopes the articles will be more reliable and people will be able to pay for that. I remember that when the movie 'Borat' was shown in movie theatres this summer, they had to close down the article about Kazachstan because people kept updating it according to how the country is depicted by Borat (woman before the carriages instead of hourses etc).
Starting a wiki also means you need to reach a critical mass of visitors to actually get a lot of quality content. There are many wikis out there that started with a basic structure put in by the creators, but never got much more 'meat'. As always: there are more takers than givers.
I'm still not sure how wiki's can be successfully integrated in a learning program. You might use it to keep your content up-to-date in an easy way. You might use it to write down a learning journey, just like a common scratch pad. But like with a forum, or a blog the success will be depending on the number of people willing to contribute to it. That is the critical success factor, and nothing else.
When I first learned how to work with a wiki I found it a quite frustrating experience. Somehow the navigation within a wiki is not something I find natural. I love a wiki page when I'm linked to it directly from another site or just to look up a particular definition or term. But I'm having trouble to find my way in a wiki documentation site.
One example of a wiki I wanted to mention here is TikiWiki, a wiki for eduction. It is mainly an initiative from Spain, but it shows ways that academics and school teachers are experimenting with wiki's.
The good about a wiki is also the bad: anyone can update it. Do you believe anyone saying anything? One of the founders of wikipedia is starting his own version now (can't even remember the name) where only authenticated users can edit articles, and where editors are paid for their contributions/reviews. He hopes the articles will be more reliable and people will be able to pay for that. I remember that when the movie 'Borat' was shown in movie theatres this summer, they had to close down the article about Kazachstan because people kept updating it according to how the country is depicted by Borat (woman before the carriages instead of hourses etc).
Starting a wiki also means you need to reach a critical mass of visitors to actually get a lot of quality content. There are many wikis out there that started with a basic structure put in by the creators, but never got much more 'meat'. As always: there are more takers than givers.
I'm still not sure how wiki's can be successfully integrated in a learning program. You might use it to keep your content up-to-date in an easy way. You might use it to write down a learning journey, just like a common scratch pad. But like with a forum, or a blog the success will be depending on the number of people willing to contribute to it. That is the critical success factor, and nothing else.
Labels: wiki
zaterdag, februari 10, 2007
Curriki - a wiki for education
The most popular wiki is ofcourse wikipedia. I stumbled upon another wiki for educational content: curriki.com . There is not much content yet, but it is a good initiative. It is not the first project trying to share teaching content. I'm wondering if it will work. I don't know why but there is something going wrong with the whole content sharing for learning. It doesn't seem to happen. As always many takers, few to no givers. Why does everyone keep sitting on their lessons? Is making learning content something to personal to share? Is it something you only want to share with your direct colleagues and not with the world? Do teachers fear the reactions of their peers? Is it too much trouble to share? Is it more trouble than it is worth? Please teachers of this world, enlighten me...
Labels: wiki
