This week's task came at the perfect time. Since I am also studying Maths at the moment, one of our assignments for it was to create a wiki so i thought i could use it here also and kill two birds with one stone.
Group assignments worked on from distance have always proven to be a difficult task. Word documents, powerpoint presentations, images, videos, etc. were emailed to each member of the group so that they could then add their parts or comment on what had been done already then email it back out to the other members who would all be doing the same thing so before you know it each member has five emails of the same document with five different sets of changes / additions on it. These then had to be collated by one member who would put all the documents together then email this new document out to all the group members so that they could add parts or comment on what ha….hang on, we've heard this bit already… and so on and so on, until the final document was produced. Phew! As you can probably already guess, keeping track of the 'final' or latest document was always a challenge. Wikis on the other hand are a great way to work collaboratively. A wiki is just like a word document BUT it is completely stored online. The wiki is accessed for editing by using a password which can be sent out to all of the students in the group, thus enabling all members to alter and or add to the wiki. A wiki can be referred to as a living document. It is constantly evolving and can have any number of students altering or adding to it simultaneously. This allows for a much more streamlined approach to collaborative works as members can always have instant access to the most recent document wherever and whenever they have internet access.
My Wiki PMI
PLUS | MINUS | INTERESTING |
· Easy to collaborate · Ideas can be submitted at any time · Easily altered · Create and edit pages collaboratively (Chao, 2007) · Fun and engaging way to learn | · Some schools may block blogging sites · Work within a group can be deleted without the authors permission. · Internet connection can be an issue, dropping out / no internet at home. · Possibility of leading to cyber bullying. · Copyright infringements/ plagiarism | · Users can see changes and comment on them · Students feel more confident when 'hiding' behind a keyboard and monitor. · Gives teachers an extra tool for teaching. |
I found the process of creating a wiki quite simple. The hardest task for me was choosing which background to use…. oops. Always getting sidetracked on the unimportant stuff. Anyway, creating a wiki was very similar to creating a blog. The website (www.wikispaces.com) was well set out and the start up wizard is very easy to use. It doesn’t take long at all to create a wiki.
Below is the link to my groups maths wiki.
http://maths-l1107.wikispaces.com/
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