Personal Thoughts on
Using Wikis in the Media Center
The first thing that stood out to me from the readings when thinking how they could benefit the media center was that wikis promoted “Collaborative annotated bibliographies where students add summaries and critiques about course-related readings”. Wikis can be used most effectively for group projects promoting collaboration and student involvement and there is an accountability because you can see the work individual students put forth. They are also very user friendly and easy for students to learn how to navigate. I also think they are perfect for the media center because they are ad free and come with no software to install on computers.
After
viewing the Georgia school’s library wiki, I also realized that they can be
beneficial in reminding students of operation hours, introducing parents and
students or outsiders to the library staff, providing surveys for library
improvement, featuring different books and allowing students to browse archives.
Visiting the school wiki also showed me what an informative tool they can be.
For example they can provide students with links from research tools and file
sharing, after school events, etc. Another benefit of using wikis in the media
center is the collaboration between media specialists they promote. We can
share ideas and get tips on how to improve our media centers.
Especially
after reading the last article, Bowlan really opened my eyes to see that wikis
can also “allow students to engage the novel beyond the pages of the book”
because students can “discuss the book, share papers for peer feedback”.
How Can Wikis Be Used
Most Effectively
According to Information Week, it’s important to “make it relevant, encourage use, identify the leaders, change mistakes automatically, show the content provider, state goals and respect one’s peers”. These are the best guidelines that I have seen. I believe wikis are most effective when communicators are respecting one another, there is accountability and ideas are being shared in non-biased ways.
Drawbacks to Using
Wikis
One of the biggest drawbacks when using wikis is that students can delete each other’s work, maybe not purposely but accidently. As in the article, Seven Things You Should Know About Wikis says, a potential to mischief exists because anyone can modify the content with internet access. The article also points out that an additional drawback is that structuring content can be a challenge and wikis can create a collaborate bias because these are only perspectives of a group.
According
to Schwartz, wikis don’t actually provide tools for project management because
it neglects organization since everyone isn’t on the same page. He also says
that wikis aren’t secure enough for sensitive information and that their
ability to export and import information from external data sources are substandard.
Strong and Weak
Points of Wikis
As I said earlier, a strong point is that wikis are easy to use and they promote collaboration. I think it’s important that they are democratic, accessible to all. Wikis are a great way for students to work on projects and explore other’s opinions while defining their own thoughts. I would say the weak points are that anyone can edit and delete work, they can be biased or promote invalid information and perhaps stray from the goals of the wiki. I do believe if teachers and media specialists are monitoring the wikis, they can ensure that things don’t happen like bad language or offensive works. I also question plagiarism since anyone from the world can view the group’s work.
What Elements Promote
Collaboration?
Personally, I think that one way to move wikis from passive storage cabinets to active collaborative spaces, education wise, is to choose projects and topics students would be very interested in. If they are assigned a boring project, they are more out to research facts and stop at that. With fun wikis, I believe the collaboration and opinions are endless. I also think allowing students to share photos and videos makes the wikis more interesting and students would be more likely to share things they would like their peers to view. So to sum up my opinion, I think moving the wikis from passive to active is actually in the educator’s hands because they choose how engaging the topic is.
Schwartz,
E. 2008. “The Advantages and
Disadvantages of Using a Wiki to Manage Your IT Projects”. Retrieved From: http://www.cio.com/article/2433907/project-management/the-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-using-a-wiki-to-manage-your-it-projects.html
2005. “Wikis: Enabling Effective Knowledge Sharing
Across the Organization. Retrieved From: http://www.informationweek.com/software/information-management/wikis-enabling-effective-knowledge-sharing-across-the-organization/d/d-id/1038866?
Whitney, I agree with you that wikis offer a lot for media centers and to college or high school classes because of the ease of use with collaborative group projects. Many of us, (probably you included) have use Wiki with the group Pathfinders project from our Online Reference class. That was my first experience using it. I found it very user friendly and like the articles Dr. Cooper linked in said it allows the production of polished, collaborative projects. For that assignment we divided up tasks, made a template that we all could add to, and then could do our part for the project on our own time frames since we were located throughout the state of GA. This sort of project would work with a school library media specialist, teachers, and students if they wanted to compile lists of in library and online resources relating to curricular studies. Students could be encouraged to find sources, discuss what they find with their class, and then add to the Wiki for future use. I think students would like to see their contributions included in a webpage for use by their class/school and even other schools. A media specialist could use projects like this to encourage collaboration between teachers and the media program and thus show how the program contributes to teaching of students. If the collaboration was difficult to achieve, a media specialist could create the wikis herself, link them to the school website, and thus support the taught curriculum of the school as well.
ReplyDeleteOne drawback to setting up Wikis that may come into play if the site is used several years would be need to check the site and links for information that has become dated and links that have stopped working. So though one may be finished creating a site, maintaining it is still necessary. I also agree that plagiarism becomes a concern because of the huge amounts of information available. My high school kids and my husband, who is a professor, talk about the occurrence of plagiarism quite often. My belief is that it happens more because we are so use to “sharing” things we see and like on social media that we don’t value the effort that went into the creation of the written work/music/video/art, etc as much.
I enjoyed reading your thoughts on wiki. My first experience with wiki was the Pathfinders assignment which was a really great opportunity to work collaboratively and explore all that wiki has to offer. I found the articles to be very informative on how they encourage collaboration and sharing resources an easier task. Media Specialists can provide resources to teachers and students through wikis and ensure that information is readily available. It is still imperative that students follow the same guidelines (plagarism rules) that are applied when completing any research assignment.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your post, Whitney. I believe Wikis have a lot of merit inside of the classroom as they allow students to work collaboratively. To me, it is a lot easier for students to divide and conquer a group project by using a Wiki where they can easily show who did what as opposed to other means. It also helps that Wikis are so easy to use since you do not need to have any web design skills in order to build one.
ReplyDeleteI also really enjoyed how Bowlan described using Wikis to take a noval beyond the pages of the book. This gives students endless ideas on how to dig further into the book whether it be describing where it took place, disecting certain parts of the book, or even creating different media projects to show on a Wiki page for the book. I really think that students can really take a novel and run with it in regards to using a Wiki since Wikis have so many options in regards to what you can put on them.
I really liked how you mentioned the strengths as well as drawbacks to using Wikis so that your blog post showed both sides of Wikis. I believe the strengths overpower any weaknesses though. Great post!
I enjoyed reading your response to Whitney's post. Your thoughts in conjunction with Whitney's allowed me to take a different perspective on the use of Wikis as instructional resources. I have always focused the attention on teachers and librarians when it comes to their use but I often overlook their use in the aspect of them being more student-centered. Even in my classroom, I use them as a teaching tool but I would like to use them more often as a guiding resource that helps create self-directed learners. This will also promote critical thinking in addition to Bowlan's ideas to enrich novels with Wikis. My goal for "Technology Tuesday" is to implement Wikis more and make them more student-focused. I would also like to eventually have the students create their own Wiki and present it to this class with the intention of getting the students to really find value in their use, and to prepare them for today's fast-paced technological society.
DeleteYou and Whitney both had great posts that aligned directly to and simplified the articles.
My favorite part of your post was your admission that "Bowlan really opened [your] eyes to see that wikis can also allow students to engage the novel beyond the pages of the book because students can discuss the book, share papers for peer feedback . . .'" Encouraging reading and encouraging engagement in reading should be a primary focus of a school library, and a wiki could serve this purpose. The SLMS would have to devote time to monitoring the wiki and prompting contributors to continue using it to avoid the "storage cabinet" effect, but students could discuss and share ideas like a virtual book club. Prompting them to branch out and add other media as well as historical, scientific, or cultural connections to a novel would improve their ability to see those real-world and cross-curricular connections. Several schools in our district have conducted community reads and hosted discussions; the wiki would be an excellent extension of that idea and way for more people to participate. Whitney also brings up the problem with plagiarism, and Linda makes a good point about our collaborative culture who are so used to sharing. More opportunities like wikis that allow students to learn how to appropriately collaborate can help. As they create their own content, they may also appreciate the work that goes into it, taking pride in their own work and developing consideration for others' work. Whitney also makes an excellent point about choosing topics that interest students, and I've noticed several people discussing the wikis they created for their pathfinders. To keep the wiki alive it needs to be useful. I have shared and continued to use my group's pathfinder in my classes, so it is not a storage cabinet. A wiki for a book study could be kept alive and continuously updated as the group reads more books. How fantastic would it be to keep a section of the wiki to draw connections among novels as the group reads more?
ReplyDeleteI have no experience with wikis and have read little information on the topic prior to this class. After reading the original blog and completing some research of my own, I can see both the pros and cons of wikis. I think wikis are good for posting and editing informal conversations on a variety of topics. I feel like it is a good way for a group of people to collaborate and brainstorm. A con is the information available on the wikis may or may not be creditable and you would need to do additional research to verify the accuracy of the information. Anyone with Internet access can edit and delete other members’ information. Based on the information provided by Whitney and further research, I would use a wiki page to collect informal information and opinions from organizations like book clubs or test groups to write reviews on products and voice opinions on specific topics.
ReplyDeleteThank you Whitney for allowing me insight into the technological and reference-related aspects of Wikis. The use of Wikis as an online informational platform was also an eye-opener, as their use is often focued on the purpose of instruction. Creating subcategories to organize your thoughts and the content from the articles helped me to conceptualize Wikis a little better.
ReplyDelete-See reply to Katie