Wiki Reflection

Set wiki activities-

Through my participation on the wiki activities I have found that wiki’s can provide an appropriate online collaboration tool for a range of different students. However, without appropriate scaffolding a wiki can seem a little useless. Providing students with a blank wiki page will not allow students to fully understand what is required. Scaffolds are provided as a learning support for students. As a future learning manager I will aim to gradually removed the scaffolds as learners become more self directed and confident. De Bono’s six thinking hats were used as a scaffolding tool to address the question: should mobile devices be used in the classroom? This was a great scaffold tool as it allowed us to answer an array of questions/topics.  The only slight issue I found with the six thinking hats was that we did not arrive at a conclusion. However, every student who wished to have a say had an equal input, and each student could then draw their own conclusion. As each student uploaded their input it allowed the wiki to instantly become an online documented reference.

The wiki activities drew on many learning theories through the use of appropriate scaffolding: De Bono’s six thinking hats. Behaviourism can be identified, the learning manager can view all the changes made to the wiki. Through the use of a wiki, the learning manager can offer students positive reinforcement. The learning manager can view the student changes through the history. This allows students to reshape what they have learned through the process.

Constructivism was a predominate theory used throughout the six thinking hats wiki. As students, we drew on our own past experiences and knowledge, and were able to share this knowledge and experience through the appropriate scaffolding provided.

I have made many wikis for different subjects throughout my time at uni. Here is my wiki experimenting for E-learning http://shonaselearning.wikispaces.com/home.
On this wiki, I have also added my movie and a link to my PowerPoint created for another course.
If scaffolded correctly, a wiki is a great tool that I can see myself using in my classroom as a future learning manager. However, there are also many elements that are lowlights of a wiki. The following is a SWOT (Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) of using a wiki.

Strengths:

• Allows all students to collaborate online
• Teachers can view the students interaction
• Scaffolding for student assessment makes all students participate and become exposed to online ICT
• Specific learning of topics when scaffolded correctly

Weaknesses:

• When two people are editing the same wiki at the same time, one is deleted or edited over.
• Technology is sometimes unreliable and can fail
• In a classroom when a whole class is trying to access the wiki, the system can overlaod and cause the site to freeze
• If students do not have acess to the internet at home becomes hard to interact as a group

Opportunities:

• If deleted information can be found in the history section
• Students become familiar with ICT's
• Can add several pages for different topics
• Can add videos and images
• Becomes an online prof and copy of student work

Threats:

• Becomes an online resources that anyone can view unless put in private
• Students or teachers need to be careful of copyright when posting images and videos