Wikis

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http://schoolcomputing.wikia.com/wiki/Wikis

Wikis:

Before the tutorial on wikis, I thought Wikipedia was the only wiki out there! However, I have learned this is clearly not the case.  A 'wiki' is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser. They can be incredibly simple to use, time efficient and allow collaborative input. I posted the video we watched in class. It explains wikis in simple laymen terms and I found it to be pretty entertaining!*snap!

Wikipedia:

Wikipedia is often considered as the 'poster child' for web 2.0, however, it's reliability is heavily criticised. Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation.  Based on personal experience, I think Wikipedia is an awesome tool. If I am interested on reading up on virtually any topic, I usually look it up on Wikipedia and get a pretty detailed outline. I've always known that I should be cautious using Wikipedia because their pages are not created entirely by experts in the field (although, some do contribute), but rather, are open to the public to create and modify. Fortunately, Wikipedia does have safeguard options. For instance, viewers can click on the 'history' tab which lists the page's previous revisions, including the date and time of each edit, the username or IP address of the user who made it, and their edit summary. This is not only useful because you can perform background checks on the reliability but also, the 'history' tab  allows you to delete previous edits if deemed incorrect or unsuitable (as in the case of Justin Beiber's Wikipedia hacking incident: http://hollywoodoncrack.net/justin-biebers-wikipedia-hacked/).

Due to the growing popularity of Wikipedia, many other sites have been developed claiming to be a more reliable source of information such as Scholerpedia, which relies on collaborative input, however, scholars approve the final addition. I found a website listing the Top Seven Alternatives to Wikipedia. Conversely, just as the reliability of information presented on Wikipedia should be questioned, alternative sites should too. For instance, Conservapedia presents information but largely from a conservative Christian point of view. 

Despite ongoing questions on Wikipedia's reliability, a study by the Nature journal in 2005, found that

Wikipedia is about as good a source of accurate information as Britannica.  The following article for the Wall Street Journal discusses: Will Wikipedia mean the end of Traditional Encyclopedias?. After reading the article, I agree with Lewis Mumford's closing comment. Long before the explosion of Web 2.0, Mumford predicted that the mass influx of information could "bring about a state of intellectual enervation and depletion hardly to be distinguished from massive ignorance." To overcome this, people need to be selective with what they follow. As,Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales stated  "I think there is a general view among a lot of people that it has no errors, like, 'I read it in Britannica, it must be true.' It's good that people see that there are a lot of errors everywhere." Hence, teachers should help students develop skills to make educated decisions on the quality of information they encounter online, encourage students to seek out more than one source of information and teach paraphrasing skills to prevent plagiarism. 

Wikis in Education:

Follow the link Wikis in Education . Provides an excellent list of ideas on how to use a wiki in education. Ideas mentioned include:

• Class or School Communication Site:
• Collaborative Class Site/Knowledge Base
• Assignments/Portfolios
• Process Writing Archive
• Class Book/Collaborative Authoring: Teachers and/or students can create their own text books
• Group Projects
  

 Advantages of Wikis in education

• easy to use, learn and anyone can edit.
• widens access to the power of web publishing to non-technical users
• encourages collaborative learning. 
• people located in different parts of the world can work on the same document. This allows assignments to be completed over the holidays or if a student is absent for an extended period. 
• the wiki has no predetermined structure. Hence, wikis are a flexible tool which can be used for a wide range of teaching applications. 
• there are a wide range of open source software wiki's to choose from so licensing costs shouldn't be a barrier to installing an institutional wiki.
• Provides option for virtual schooling. Useful for distance learning particularly for children in remote areas or those unable to attend school/home schooled. Also allows students to participate in online study sessions.

Disadvantages of wikis in education: 

Advantages in one context, can be disadvantages in another: http://wikieducator.org/Wikieducator_tutorial/What_is_a_wiki/Advantages_and_disadvantages

• Anyone can edit so this may be too open for some applications, for example confidential documentation. However it is possible to regulate user access.
• Open to SPAM and Vandalism if not managed properly. There are easy ways to restore a page however, and on WikiEducator you must be logged in to edit pages so this reduces vandalism by automated spam bots.
• Requires Internet connectivity to collaborate, but technologies to produce print versions of articles are improving
• The flexibility of a wiki's structure can mean that information becomes disorganised. As a wiki grows, the community plans and administers the structure collaboratively. 
• Lack of interaction with teachers through virtual schooling.