Canned Goods

WiscWiki 2007

This past Friday I participated in the first WiscWiki Conference which included 20 faculty and IT staff from around the entire UW-System (more were not able come to campus but are involved on the site). Some of the disciplines represented: Communication, English (Comp-Rhet & Lit), LIS, and ESL.

There was a range of experience with wikis represented, but only a few had extensive experience, and surprisingly, I seemed to be one of the more experienced—if not in actual wiki usage, then in knowledge about about wikis. My Wikipedia project will soon be up in the wiki, but basically my students will choose terms we’ve encountered during the semester and write Wikipedia entries for them. There are a few benefits for students (in my mind):

—learn the basics of wiki-markup syntax
—consider the strengths and weaknesses of writing in collaborative spaces
—consider the strengths and weaknesses of Wikipedia, specifically, as a source of information
—consider “objectivity” in encyclopedic writing (see debate 1 and 2 surrounding Wikipedia and creation of Conservapedia & Citizendium)

I’m sure there are more goals I missing, but that’s the point of attending the conference and contributing to WiscWiki—take advantage of collective intelligence.

We began the conference with 5 min intros by those who’ve used wikis. My story was about how there seems to be a fiction regarding ow tech savvy our students are. For example, when I started talking to my students about wikis and using Wikipedia as a resource, I showed them how easy it is to edit many of Wikipedia’s entries. I chose the Web 2.0 entry and changed the first sentence to read that I had coined the term rather than O’Reilly media.

The general reaction is difficult to describe, but shock wouldn’t be far from what I saw. Even students who had heard about Wikipedia being editable, they hadn’t really thought about what that meant—how easy it is to do. So, in my attempts to give students the knowledge and skills to navigate the new media landscape, it seems appropriate and important to give students opportunities to compose in these spaces—to see how it works from the position of producers rather than consumers.

More about the conference:
Wiki hosting: basically, in the UW-System, establishing wikis is a grassroots effort. Those with the tech proficiencies can create, maintain, and host wikis. I was lucky enough to make contact with people supporting the use of Moodle for course management (it uses erfurtwiki) and take the time to help a noob set it up. One example is Matt Livesey’s advisement wiki at UW-Stout; he set it up and maintains it, but it isn’t a part of the University (fear, lack of control are factors). Also, once a university or system decides to support a wiki platform, there needs to be a service model & service team ($$$$)

Risks of free collaboration wikis:
–student work getting changed
–student privacy concerns (FERPA)
–vandalism
–spambots
–protecting the university’s rep

Some steps to take:
–Using MediaWiki may be the best platform option in that that is what Wikipedia uses, and they frequently update the software.
–demonstrate to administration how wikis solve problems that cannot be solved any other way

There was more that happened that I think is best left to be developed on WiscWiki (for the sake of space here and efficiency [my time—prelims, con paper/proposals are calling]).

I’ll end with touching on the session I moderated: authorship models. Here are some of the questions we discussed:

—In terms of authorship, do wikis do something new, different than the ways in which knowledge is constructed elsewhere? Or do wikis simply model what’s already happening but in a more public space?
—What authorship models work the best in particular situations? (Inside and outside the classroom // wiki-based and non-wiki-based)
—Why do they work, in each locale or situation?
—What are the similarities and differences between outside-of-school (workplace or community) authorship models and in-school models?
—Is any text ever single-authored? How can we talk about similarities and differences in authorship models with our students?
—How do collaboration models in f2f or e-spaces allow different personality types to participate? (we talked about “shy” students and diminishing effects of being judged [I’m not sure how judgment by others changes in e-spaces])
—What makes a collaborative group well?

One of my reservations when talking about any school assignment is Where does motivation/fun fit in? I don’t have a complete handle on this, but it seems that fun is what’s missing from the discussion of authorship models. It also bugged me in the community building session: why would anyone want to be a member of a community in a classroom, especially a gen ed required composition course? How is it possible to make community happen in the classroom, if FUN is the essential component? If fun is essential . . .