Reflection on my wiki experience

So the next part of this weeks e-learning journey required us to create a wiki and deck it out as best we could . I believe I accidentally made my wiki whilst participating in last week wiki activity as I mistakenly thought we needed a wiki account to participate in this!! Turned out to be a bonus as I had already done the boring part of setting up the wiki space, the fun part was left which was to decorate my space with my own content.

Anyway back to the point of this blog posting which is to explain my findings and understandings on the learning potential of a wiki. One issue I had with this weeks activity in setting up the wiki was the scaffolding seemed very broad and was not very specific as to what content was needed in our wiki. I could now ramble on about all the issues (and the wonderful thing) I encountered while using the wiki in boring essay format, or use some of the wonderful analytical tools we have learnt about this week. (I choose to do the later!!)

A SWOT analysis will help lay out my findings on my wiki experience:

Strengths Very easy to use. Anyone can edit. Great tool to share ideas, information and knowledge amongst students. Supports group collaboration effectively.	Weaknesses Students can abuse trust of using a wiki by deleting others contributions or adding inappropriate material Cannot accommodate multiple, concurrent users .
Opportunities Classroom resource for students to look back on when they wish. Creates an online community encouraging student relationships. Motivates students to participate and collaborate together. Students learning from each other.	Threats Copyright and plagiarism. Anyone can view content. Threat of spam or vandalism. Erased content.

It is extremely important to ensure that when working in a wiki are students are working safely , ethically and legally. When using Wiki's with my learners it is my responsibility to teach my students the correct behaviours in respect to ethics and legallacy. Even as a primary teacher my students would need to learn how to link information the have posted into the wiki back to the original source. If implementing a wiki activity, one of my most important instructions would be explaining the importance of trust amongst students in the Wiki.

It is important as teachers to educate ourselves about the challenges and risk of using Wiki's in the classroom. Smart copying http://www.smartcopying.edu.au/scw/go is a website dedicated to educating people about copyright in all Australian schools. It gives as access to the National guidelines, FAQ's and Fact sheets that can be accessed online. The site also contains excellent information about creating ICT's and what is possible within the law.


Cyber smart http://www.cybersmart.gov.au/ is the Australian Governments Cyber Safety program providing. It provides “activities, resources and practical advice to help young kids, kids, teens and parents safely enjoy the online world.”.
Ethical safe and responsible practises when working with ICT’s along with operating efficiently and safely is also covered across every year juncture in the Student ICT Expectations Document. Click on this link for more information. http://education.qld.gov.au/smartclassrooms/strategy/dp/studentict.html

Wiki's illustrate that this is the future of education and the goal of producing digitally literate students is high on the agenda from an early age. We should however be educated about those risks and challenges and we should also educate our students about how and why they should take these issues seriously.

At all times we should model ethical and legal guidelines to our students and encourage them to do the same. The opportunities ICT’s in eLearning can provide far outweigh the risks, and it is my opinion that those risks can be dealt with through information and education.

In comparison to my first wiki experience the setting up of my wiki this week was a tad more difficult. I believe the main reason for my difficultly this week was the lack of scaffolding around the design of the Wiki. Only when reading the least question posed to us in Engagement Activity 3 which ask us 'to consider in our reflection that it is not just you, but more importantly your students, who will be working in the wiki space' was I able to figure what was and was not appropriate for my Wiki space.

With this new insight, I went back to my SWOT analysis and looked over the opportunities I could create in my Wiki for my students. Then I was able to edit (a great strength of the wiki) and put some of the great learning opportunities into my Wiki.

References

Education Queensland. (2011) Student ICT expectations. Smart classrooms. Department of Education and

Training. Retrieved from http://education.qld.gov.au/smartclassrooms/strategy/dp/studentict.html

Smartcopying. (2008) The official guide to copyright issues for Australian schools

Cybersmart (2009) Australian Communications and Media Authority. Commonwealth of Australia. Retrieved
from http://www.cybersmart.gov.au/