Easy Writing, Simple Publishing: Teaching and Collaboration With Blogs and Wikis

Assitant Prof. Christian Sandvig, Speech Communication
Assistant Prof. Robert Baird, Unit for Cinema Studies

Abstract

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The noble pedagogical goals of teaching a writing-intensive class are always in conflict with the workload. However, student blogs can help courses of all sizes become writing-intensive without an unreasonable grading workload, by implementing blogging with a system of online peer review. In addition, assignments incorporating multimedia blogging can catalyze student enthusiasm and involvement. Wikis are the perfect collaboration medium, allowing two or more authors to vastly improve upon the previous multi-authoring paradigm of passing hard copy and word processing files back and forth. This session will detail early uses of blogs and wikis for teaching, highlight benefits and challenges, and demonstrate methods for incorporating blogs and wikis into other online Web sites and learning systems.

Wikis

What is so crazy about collaboration?

Some Things we Humans Collaboratively Create

The ability for anyone to contribute to and revise a wiki seems radical to our notions of a solitary writer, a lone artist, individual accountability and credit. However, there must be other objects, environments, and works that are collectively developed by humans. For instance, motion pictures are often known for their famous directors, whether Hitchcock or Scorsese, but if you look at any list of credits, and you actually hear how Hitchcock or any director worked with talented artists and crew, one soon realizes that motion pictures are really big wikis! They just cost a lot more.

Some collaborative architectural creations: Sainte Chapelle, Eiffel Tower, The Mezquita Cathedral

The Oxford English Dictionary was created collaboratively, with examples of usage submitted from across the English Speaking world (including famously a lunatic asylum). The tradition continues:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/programmes/wordhunt/

Professional Collaboration

1. Plans and Proposals: Practice Teaching Facility
2. Conference Presentations by co-presenters or groups: CIC Tech Forum "Incorporating Blogs, Wikis, and Podcasts into Online Courses and Curricula"
3. Meeting Agendas and Minutes: EdTech Training and Consulting Group Forum
4. Day-to-day Operations, Status, Updates): Illinois Compass Upgrade Project
5. Projects: CITES Lens Project

Teaching Possibilities

1. Wikipedia as goldmine of data for study of Rhetoric and political discourse: Hurricane Katrina (compare early versions to later and current versions of evolving, contested stories)
2. Wikibooks are growing, with titles such as Learning Theory," "How to Assemble A Desktop PC", and books for kids like "Wikijunior Big Cats"
3. Wiki course glossary for evolving definitions and entries on difficult, contested, and rich concepts (journalism course working with freedom of the press): killer apps of edtech, the meaning of life
4. Undergraduate writers, editors, publishers by contributing to current entries or adding new entries to Wikipedia, especially for local, campus-specific topics: City of Champaign, University of Illinois
5. student-contributed photo collections... Travel Images
6. collaborative student group work
7. Harvard Cyberlaw Wiki where students use the course wiki to develop and post questions in real time during lecture/discussion!
8. online portfolios, peer reviews: student portfolio at seedwiki

Discussion Questions

1. Is Email Dumb?
2. Is centralized campus support for blogs and wikis important?
3. What are the risks/side effects of making student work publicly available on the web?
4. How to combat blog comment spam / wiki spam?
5. How do you effectively manage the potential chaos of a "pure" open editable Wiki being used for instructional purposes?
6. Where are we (teachers; technologists; society) heading with Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs and wikis?
7. Bloggers vs. "Mainstream Media" - revolution or hype?
8. Blogs and wikis as help for the "curse of email"
9. Are blogs and wikis changing the role of desktop word processing?
10. To Blog or wiki, that is the question.

References, Resources, Links

Educause: "7 Things You Should Know About Wikis"ELI7004.pdf

Educause: "7 Things You Should Know About Blogs"ELI7006.pdf

"Wide World of Wikis: A Discussion with Jerry Michalski, founder and president of Sociate" Excellent The Economist podcast discussion of how the simplier, cheaper technology of wikis is actually better for employee collaboration than the million $ information management system that companies and institutions have developed to facilitate and improve information sharing and collaboration.

"Blogs as Leading Indicators: A Discussion with David Sifry, Founder and CEO, Technrati." The Economist podcast interview with David Sifry, who argues that blogs are connecting companies with experts, hobbists, and narrow, but highly enthusiastic demographic slices of their audience.

"Wide Open Spaces: Wikis, Ready or Not" Good, early article from Educause Review by Brian Lamb on wikis as transformative technology with great potential for education.

"Wiki" entry in Wikipedia

Peanut Butter Wiki

pbwiki Tour: http://pbwiki.com/tour/1.html
pbwiki style guide: http://yummy.pbwiki.com/WikiStyle

Seedwiki

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