Wiki Learning Space Reflection

My choice of learning spaces to further explore is wikis. I have been spending quite a lot of time in my wiki and love it. I like to be organised and although I previously said that wiki's were messy I have found that a wiki is providing me a wonderful space to organize my own learning. It is also providing a space for me to catalogue ideas for my future teaching career. My personal learning wiki for ICT can be found at this link.

Included in my previous reflection on learning spaces I created a PMI chart on wiki's, along with blogs and websites. As a starting point it would be great idea to have a look at this PMI chart for wikis prior to discussing how wiki's can be further used in learning, so I have recreated it in this posting.

However, my initial reflection on blogs, wikis and web-sites as learning spaces also discusses legal, safe and ethical practices when working in any learning space. 

PMI charts on all three learning spaces are also included, which will further enrich our discussion on how wiki's can be used in learning as we will be able to make connections to other learning spaces.

PMI Chart - Wiki

Plus	Minus	Implications
Enables collaborative learning regardless of physical presence. User friendly tool bar. Students can all contribute Information on the Wiki can be continuously updated there are different settings for who can view and edit the wiki There is a history which can be restored if information is deleted and later required. Information can be very well organised by the use of pages, links, table of contents etc Has a comments feature which could be used by either the facilitator or other students	Students can delete other students work either deliberately or by accident Students cannot work in the wiki concurrently as only one of the students work will be saved. Can be very messy and difficult to navigate depending on the students skills in using the wiki Students like to present information differently, so if they are all using the same space some students may feel uncomfortable with the layout contributed by other students.	Very good opportunities for collaborative learning Small group brainstorming is very useful in a wiki whether it be by a scaffold such as debono's 6 thinking hats or setting up a wiki page as a place to add words, pictures, videos etc as ideas in any format that can be later organised and evaluated on a separate wiki page using a different scaffold such as a concept map for example. Wiki's have the capabilites to organise information enabling them to facilitate an extensive research assignment or body of work which has been thought out, critiqued and organised. This can be done collaboratively in groups the members of which are in different locations. Eg it may be students in their homes on the other side of town or class projects sharing with schools on the other side of the world. All with the ability to contribute to the wiki.

As much as I have found that I believe wiki's are wonderful for myself as both a learner and an "organised" teacher, I need to consider how and why I would incorporate wikis' in my personal learning design.

Throughout this course I have found that technology can be used to encourage higher order thinking. As discussed by Wendy Fasso (2013) social constructivism is "learning.... that is founded upon social interactions within a learning community or expert community." One of the greatest benefits of wikis is collaborative learning(Gokhale, 1995) which is where learners work together and consequently enrich their learning through shared experiences.

Individually, learners generally learn within the boundaries of their personal abilities but as advocated by Vygotsky(1978) learners can extend their learning through social interaction (Instructional design.org). This means that based on Vygotsky's theory, collaborative learning, which is possible in wikis can extend the learning of students into their personal zones of proximinal development  with support from peers and/or teachers (Instructional Design.org). That is not to say there is no ceiling on what a student can learn, they are still bound by their personal learning abilities but collaborative learning supports an extension on what normally would have been learnt by that individual.

The "Education Wikis" web-site has a collection of wikis currently being used for educational purposes. A number of the wikis listed have been created and used as resource collections for teachers but there are also class wikis and collaborative class projects which have been created in a wiki. If you do look further at the teacher resource wikis, it is worth noting that in a sense although not focused on student learning they are collaborative professional development as teachers endeavor to share ideas.

One wiki that I believe to be a good example of collaborative learning for students I found within the Education wikis web-site. It was a collaborative project created by students and scaffolded by the teacher. The project and content was based around british romanticism.  The wiki also includes reflections by the teacher and the students on the collaborative learning experience.

My two teaching areas are mathematics and business. I certainly believe that I will be able to incorporate wikis into my learning design framework in these two teaching areas. Being in my first year of my graduate diploma of teaching and learning my creativity in designing learning experiences is certainly in its fledgling stages but already I can see that wikis' would be useful in creating collaborative learning projects based around real-life problem solving. For example, business students may start by being allocated to small groups each with their own wiki. They could then start with a brainstorming page on the pro's and cons of marketing a product. This may be scaffolded by a SWOT analysis. Based on their SWOT anaylsis they may move onto ideas for producing the product. This may include collecting and evaluating information related to the potential product and setting up pin boards or glogsters with ideas which they can embed in the wiki and collaboratively evaluate. The project could go further through the process of product development all through the use of a scaffolded wiki. The process would entail collaborative problem solving and creation of new ideas.

In summary, I believe that the greatest benefits of wikis as opposed to other learning spaces such as blogs and web-sites is that by design wikis enable collaborative learning and the value behind that is an extension on what an individual learner would normally learn by themselves. Higher order thinking and problem solving collaboratively are certainly achievable with wikis. Other learning spaces can incorporate collaborative learning but not by natural design and not to the extent afforded by wikis.


References:


Fasso, W. (2013) A brief overview of learning theory. Retrieved from CQUniversity e-courses, EDED20491: ICTs for Learning Design, http://moodle.cqu.edu.au

Gokhale, A. (1995) Collaborative Learning Enhances Critical Thinking. Journal of Technology Education Volume 7 Number 1 Retrieved from http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JTE/v7n1/gokhale.jte-v7n1.html

Instructional Design.org: website page Social Development Theory (L.Vygotsky) retrieved from: http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/social-development.html