University of Canberra RecentChangesCamp (wikis)
Had a thought-filled day today at the UC RecentChangesCamp (http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/University_of_Canberra/RCC_Canberra) looking at wkis for learning. We set the agenda in the first couple of hours, after doing a form of introducing ourselves by establshing a timeline of wiki use. I think I was around 2005-06 when some CIT teachers were looking for ways to hand over some organising tasks to their students and found that wikis enabled studetn self-organising for a range of tasks over the semester. Great also to see some newcomers keen to see how wikis might provide solutions to their teaching and learning needs.
I was also reminded of the innovative work by our Library Studies teachers in using Wikispaces to engage students in the necessary policy work they’d encounter in libraries (often a dry topic and hard to digest for students). We recorded the session with Judy back in 2007! (http://onlineteachernetwork.edublogs.org/2007/01/03/otn-lunchtime-seminar-nov…
So after setting the agenda we sprung out into smaller groups to discuss aspects of interest: the morning saw us talking about Wikiversity, its merits, challenges, likely growth, etc, whilst a second group talked about wiki communities and usability (how do we get new contributors in and keep them contributing was one question)?
The afternoon loosened up (may have been the HUGE array of pizzas!) to see the main group stick together to nut out some higher level aspects around wiki culture, policy-driven activities (Wikipedia the leading example), open versus closed (wiki) communities, valuing (devaluing?) scholarship across realms of education, politics, socal spheres, etc… and so it went!
My wish for wikis in education is to explore how we can use such tools to expose learning processes especially to the learners engaged in them. The wiki outcome or ‘product’ is really not the factor here, more, the process by which learners may (or not) reach an endpoint. So, what evidence is there? The use of the history feature to assess/review versions, user contributions and perhaps aspects such as regularity, minor versus major edits, and the discussions (talk) that may or may not support this history. Are there standout contributors? What makes them so? Is there evidence of group think? Group dynamics forming and reforming? Leaders and shapers? Stragglers and followers? Of course, this may be the case regardless of whether a wiki is used or not, but if we (teachers) together wth learners use these wiki tools as part of the learner (not the mamagement of the learning) then the possibilities to really transform people through their learning is all the more exciting!
I’d be keen to see examples of such use and where learners are negotiating the curriculum as it unfolds. Are learners having a say in assessment processes? Can they negotiate their learning plans? What nfrastructure (institutional and cognitively) is available to them to influence the teaching-learning ‘balance’?
What do teachers need to know/be/do to support such activity?
