Group One - On-line Spaces - Wiki Reflection - PMI

My Wiki - PMI

Hi everyone, hope your e-learning investigating is going well. I have started my very own wiki and have learnt how to link images, and web addresses and more. Linking is very quick, I had a few tries and then got it right.

Plus

• Wikis are easy to set up, create and edit.
• Wikis are collaborative in creation and learning.
• Lower primary years would be able to create a wiki collaboratively, the learner manager would need to set up the wiki and assist learners with the use and editing of the wiki.
• Middle to upper primary would be able to create their own wikis with learner manager support if needed and then collaboratively learners can create a unit of work themselves and others to share.
• Wikis can be a 'expert jigsaw' when everyone is working together which leads to higher order thinking for individual learners.
• Wikis can be linked to a classroom website, they can be viewed by teachers, learners and parents.

Minus

• A wiki is a collaborative activity, some learners learn best working independently, so a wiki may not be the best e-learning tool for these learners.
• Information would be very easy to be deleted in a wiki, so learners would have to be very careful.
• Problems can arise when two or more learners are editing and saving the wiki at the same time. (See blog posting 20^th July).
• Learners have to be on-line to edit a wiki.

Interesting

Wiki questions should be scaffolded to enhance learners thinking.

·         A wiki is a constructivist, way of learning.

·         Learners are able to link and embed images, text and videos into their wiki to enhance visual creativity.  Learners need to told about copyright, ethics and safety when creating a wiki. (See blog entry 10th August "Basic Copyright Information Summarised"). Smartcopying is an informative site about copyright, Creative Commons is another site that informs the expectations when using other authors images, text and videos.

I wasn't sure what would happen if two people/students were editing a wiki page at the same time. When I was reflecting on the mobile phones wiki a message came on screen that mentioned that someone was also editing and I was worried what would happen. I have linked a great site I found while looking into this query of mine, lots of questions and what ifs about wiki.

I have cut and pasted from this website the section that answered my question. Retrieved from http://help.wikispaces.com/Teacher+Help

"Your students will be notified if someone else is editing the page at the same time. If there are no conflicts in the students' changes, both sets of edits will be seamlessly merged into the page. If the changes do conflict, the following will happen:

1.When the first user saves his changes, the second user will receive a notification of this and will be able to view the changes.
2.The second user can view the changes to remove the conflict if she chooses.
3.If there is still a conflict when the second user saves the page, she will be notified that she is about to overwrite the first user's changes. She will have the option to continue or cancel.

If either student's edits are incorrectly overwritten, they can find their work or revert to an earlier version of the page on the History tab. If you still have problems, email help@wikispaces.com ."
Next I'm off to my Weebly.