Instructional Technology
Conference 2005
Proposal #29
Title: Embracing Chaos: Building A Class Wiki
Name: Joseph J. Hughes
Audience Level: All
Audience: Instructional technology specialists, lab directors, network administrators
Length: 1 Hour
Abstract:
This paper is a critical account of the class Wiki built by my Senior Honors Capstone students in Fall 2004. Topics discussed will include: choosing Wiki software, teaching the students how to use the software, the pros and cons of editing student contributions to the class Wiki, and how building a Wiki with my students has changed my classroom teaching. Finally, I will treat further avenues of development.
Description:
To the ancient Greeks, "Chaos" was a cosmic void from which the earth and the other components of the universe emerged. Over the last decade, my students and I have experimented with class web pages, bulletin board software, and web portals in an attempt to extend and enhance the classroom experience. Each of these initiatives had its strengths, but also its corresponding weaknesses. The web pages were too static, the bulletin board too frightening, and the learning curve on the portal too high. The last two were prohibitively high maintenance. I was sliding back into ìPowerpoint and blatherî mode when the Wikipedia encouraged me to embrace Chaos.
I settled on EditMeís hosted Wiki farm after I learned that free Wiki farms are worth every cent you pay. Thanks to a ìsmart classroomî equipped with computer, projector, and Internet connection, teaching my Senior Capstone Seminar students to use the software took literally one half of a class period. They took to it more quickly than any of the other initiatives I had tried and were soon producing ìcontent.î Here, I let chaos rule by deciding not to give highly specific guidelines, and not to edit the ìfinishedî products (although the temptation was awful). It worked best if the content was ìtheirs.î Some of this content was pedestrian, but some was downright excellent. Gradually the students worked up from individual articles to subsites to individual essays based primarily on the classís Wiki articles. No more brilliant term papers consigned to filing cabinets or spinning around on hard drives ñ rather, the very best kind of collaborative learning: an entirely student-produced reference work.
It also changed the way I taught in the classroom. No more polishing, printing out, and reading lecture notes. I started to post talking points for each lecture on the Wiki, project them on to the screen in my classroom, and let Chaos determine what form the lecture took. When a student made particularly a noteworthy contributios to class discussion, I kept him or her talking while I added the remarks to the Wiki, further breaking down the barrier between Internet and classroom. There was literally no telling which way the class would go during any given meeting. As with the Wiki writing, some class meetings worked better than others. Yet overall, the spontaneity which resulted from collaborating on the class Wiki became a very important component of what was an unusually good class.
Certain challenges remain. Evaluating individual studentsí work is still rather problematic; I am still not sure whether my next Senior Capstone Seminar students should create a new Wiki or edit the existing one. The old bulletin board jockey in me wants to see if the Wiki can be a community-building tool. Intellectual property rights and accessibility issues must be addressed. But as my students and I pursue these challenges and the others which will certainly arise, I am confident that we will find out a great deal more about the benefits of embracing Chaos.
Session Type: Lecture
Contact information/affiliation:
Joseph J. Hughes, Professor of Classics
Southwest Missouri State
University
901 South National Avenue
Springfield, MO 65804
(417) 836-6601
http://gracie.smsu.edu
Equipment: Internet connection, projector, computer (if possible)