Wiki pedadgogy

This is an interesting, well researched and detailed paper: "Wiki Pedagogy" that explores the pedagogical potential of wikis with some specific examples and guidelines for using them within a learning and teaching context. In her article Renée Fountain identifies a number specific features in relation to deploying them within an educational setting:

• Wikis maximize interplay.
• Wikis are democratic
• Wikis work in real time.
• Wiki technology is text-based
• Wikis permit public document construction, that is, distributed authorship
• Wikis complicate the evaluation of writing
• Wikis promote negotiation
• Wikis permit collaborative document editing, or open editing.
• Wikis permit the public to publish - Public as publisher
• Wikis make feedback intensely public and potentially durable.
• Wikis work on volunteer collaboration.
• Wikis endorse particular ways of writing.
• Wikis enable complete anonymity.

And equally importantly she examines ways of getting wikis to work via scaffolding the students and ensuring they are comfortable before starting the main activity. One idea for using a wiki is also described here by James Farmer - using the metaphor of an academic conference where a student or a group of students present papers or articles and make comments, ask questions and form networks through the wiki space.

Comments

[Moya Dean]

Steve
Am having trouble downloading wiki pedagogy - it just keeps freezing up my computer!
Have tried accessing it direct but still can't and yet have found many references to it in google.
Any advice?
moya
PS Thanks for fantastic edublog course on Friday

[Steven Warburton]

hi Moya ... it is a long article so I would suggest downloading it locally by using 'right-click' and 'save as'.