Having worked on a group project creating a Wiki, I can
attest to the advantage of immediate collaboration versus exchanging emails or chat
sessions. Beyond the obvious challenges of group projects, it was much less
stressful than any other group project I’ve every done. The only challenge was
the actual “meeting” times for our group to collaborate on how we would
collaborate on the Wiki. That is just one of the challenges of online learning.
Clearly, there are
many more advantages of using Wikis in adult education, especially in the
online setting. As the figure demonstrates (source http://www.wikinomics.com/blog/index.php/2008/03/26/wiki-collaboration-leads-to-happiness/)
, using Wiki collaboration is much more efficient than a chain of emails and
edits.
As our authors for this week’s readings have mentioned, one
of the challenges is the public forum aspect of Wiki’s – as with blogs. I was certainly
concerned and was concerned about grammar, sentence structure, and the like (King
& Cox, 2011). It is also different in that your peers, as well as the world
wide web, can see your work and style of writing. The advantage is that you can
also see your peers’ writings and learn from them (Hazari, North & Moreland
(2009).
Regarding faculty’s use of Wiki’s, the software allows them
to track participation and judge whether there has been equitable contribution
of all members, which is always an issue with group projects (West & West,
2009). From a teaching perspective, use of Wikis’ incorporates the
pedagogical/andragogical foundation through “situated learning discussions” - a
group working together to accomplish a goal, providing a “community of practice”,
which allows for social interactions between learners (King & Cox, 2011, p.
124).
I think those are enough for now? I think we’re all
convinced of the advantages of Wikis and that the few cons are negligible,
almost not worth mentioning. After all, there are always pros and cons to
anything, you have to sort of put the cons behind you.
References:
Hazari, S., North, A., Moreland, D. (2009). Investigating
pedagogical value of Wiki technology. Journal of information systems education.
20(2). 187-198. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.er.lib.k-state.edu/docview/200157232/abstract?accountid=11789
King, K. & Cox, T. (2011). The
Professor’s Guide to Taming Technology. Charlotte,
NC: Information Age
Publishing.
West, J. and West, M. (2009). Using Wikis for Online
Collaboration: The Power of the Read-Write Web.
San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Image Source: http://www.wikinomics.com/blog/index.php
Sonora,
ReplyDeleteI love the visual of email vice Wiki!
You mentioned that one of the challenges you found in working with a group on a Wiki project was finding an appropriate meeting time. I find this interesting because I believe the beauty of working in a virtual space is you don't have to determine a meeting time to collaborate but you must set some parameters. If your group has agreed on a timeframe for collaboration than each member can contribute on their own time. This allows for greater flexibility for each member to be a part of a project despite geography and personal schedules. I believe that if the group takes the time up front to agree on the parameters for collaborates then group member ideas, creativity, and contribution can occur within those parameters without restrictions on a particular day and time.
Yes, I agree that flexibility is the essence of online education and brings with it difficulty in meeting at a set day/time. However, it does help with the initial planning to have a one-time synchronous meeting to discuss the plan of action (division of duties, etc). Research proves that “face-to-face” interaction is more efficient than email when decisions have to be made in a timely manner, etc (Wang & Woo, 2007). See following image (link), for suggestions of when certain media is most effective. (Sorry couldn't get the image to embed)
DeleteSource p. 193: www.ejise.com/issue/download.html?idArticle=676
We met using Wimba (virtual face-to-face meeting), which also served the purpose of getting to know the group members and allowing each person to discuss their level of comfort with each aspect of the project. After that Wimba session we were able to continuing coordination with emails and notes within the Wiki.
References:
Weimann, P., Hinz, C., Scott, E., Pollock, M. ( ). Changing the communication culture of distributed teams in a world where communication is neither perfect nor complete. Academic Conferences Ltd., www.ejise.com
Wang, Q., Woo, H.L., (2007) Comparing asynchronous online discussions and face-to-face discussions in a classroom setting
British Journal of Educational Technology Vol 38 No 2 2007272–286 doi:10.1111/j.1467-8535.2006.00621.x Retrieved from http://qywang.pbworks.com/f/Online_F2F.pdf
Sonora,
ReplyDeleteI love the visual of email vice Wiki!
You mentioned that one of the challenges you found in working with a group on a Wiki project was finding an appropriate meeting time. I find this interesting because I believe the beauty of working in a virtual space is you don't have to determine a meeting time to collaborate but you must set some parameters. If your group has agreed on a timeframe for collaboration than each member can contribute on their own time. This allows for greater flexibility for each member to be a part of a project despite geography and personal schedules. I believe that if the group takes the time up front to agree on the parameters for collaboration then group member ideas, creativity, and contributions can occur within those parameters without restrictions on a particular day and time.
Hello Sonora,
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned the idea that, pedagogically, wikis provide places for learning in communities of practice, as discussed by Lari (2011). I like this vision of collaborative wikis as mini-communities of practice, and, extrapolating to life in general, the idea that much human learning takes place in communities of practice. As Lari says, citing Lave and Wenger, “communities of practice are everywhere” (p. 124).
My mind is conjuring up a vision of learning situations as so many overlapping and embedded communities of practice, kind of a set theory of collaborative experiential learning. The most common community of practice for most people is the workplace, where, ideally, they experience the cognitive apprenticeships described by Merriam, Caffarella, and Baumgartner (2007) “as new learners move through an established community’s professional hierarchy toward expertise” (Lari, 2011, p. 125).
Hopefully, each of our class wiki groups will function as an effective apprenticeship and community of practice in which every student will increase their knowledge about integrating technology into curriculum, their collaborative skills, and their technical abilities in wiki building.
References
Lari, P. (2011). The use of wikis for collaboration in higher education. In K. P. King & T. D. Cox (Eds.), The professor’s guide to taming technology: Leveraging digital media, Web 2.0, and more for learning (pp. 121-133). Charlotte, NC: Information Age.
Merriam, S. B., Caffarella, R. S., & Baumgartner, L. M. (2007). Learning in adulthood: A comprehensive guide (3rd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
I never really thought about comparing Wikis to email in terms of collaboration on a project. Now that you spell it out, however, it does make total sense. I spend hours upon hours every day sending, receiving, and attempting to deal with emails. The telephone is all but useless now. What then will take place after email? I guess it seems only rational that something such as a wiki, blog, or other central collaboration unit would arise. Are you familiar with Central Desktop? We use it at my company and it is something along these lines. Coworkers and clients alike are able to post files and communicate with one another in a message board/file sharing setting. It is all password protected and rather nice. It is not without problems, however, and can be quite frustrating with slow download/upload times, space restrictions, and general server problems.
ReplyDeleteDo you think Wiki will take over as the primary source of business communication...or something else? It can be staggering trying to imagine what the human race will come up with in the future. We've advanced so far into the tech world in actually a very short period of time when compared to how long we've actually been on this planet.
I had not heard of Central Desktop, but it certainly looks like something more organizations will begin using. I can see the efficiency with the ability to not only share the files, as with Sharepoint, but also to meet & disuss projects within the space. I can see how it would same a tremendous amount of time in my workplace, as we are always emailing files back & forth for editing - even though the files are on a shared drive??? It just seems more immediate to send the file via email - the accountability factor - than relying on the person to go and retrieve it (hoping it's the correct version. Thanks for sharing!
DeleteTo answer you question...I'm not sure Wiki's will become the primary source of business communication, but I can see something like Central Desktop functioning that way.