Week No.7 - Wikis

Wikis seem like a good e-platform to provide students with space to do their project work. Students can post their preliminary research on the assignment topic so that tutors can provide feedback on it before they actually plunge into a project topic. And as they deepen their research and find out more about a topic, they can add on, delete, edit their report as they go along. This is a really useful tool to increase the collaboration element amongst students. Although everyone may take charge of researching on a sub-topic, the Wiki allows for all members to see what each other has contributed and easily edit it if necessary. Of course, all group members must be willing to give up a little control over the parts that they have written, so as to improve the overall quality of their project work. With the Wiki, everyone knows that what's posted on the wiki is the latest version of the report. No more need to name and rename your document, v1,v2,v3 etc!


Links can be added too, to provide depth to the students' research efforts. Useful videos or images can be embedded too. This is certainly more interesting and interactive than the usual hard copy reports than we have been receiving.

We are toying with the idea of starting a wiki for students to do their MIEC assignment next semester. Once students have selected suitable news articles to do their analysis, we can get them to post their articles and a draft outlining the key concepts they wish to discuss on the Wiki. Tutors can then go see if the article is appropriate before the students do the actual report. (Presently the students have to meet with us face to face to show us their articles and draft, and it's not always easy to find a common time to do this) The report can be done via the Wiki, and tutors would be able to monitor the progress of students in their assignment. If students really go off track in their analysis, tutors can provide some guidance by say, asking some questions to point students in the right direction.

Found some useful tips on Wikis from one of the resources provided in Classroom Learning 2.0. Check this out:

http://westwood.wikispaces.com/Wiki+Hall+of+Fame

I am wondering if we could restrict the viewing of a particular Wiki on Mel to just the group members. This will help deter copying or replicating of ideas across various groups.