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Presented at the 2nd Annual Technologies in Education Conference at College of St Rose in May 2012.
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Using Wikis for Teaching
Martin A Walker SUNY Potsdam
Introduction Wikis as resources Using a wiki as a platform for collaborative
learning Conclusion
Overview
What is a wiki?
“A collaborative website which can be directly edited by anyone with access to it.”
(Wiktionary, March 20, 2007)
From the Hawaiian word “wiki wiki” meaning “quick.”
Mediawiki – Used for Wikipedia. Install it on a
local server. Harder to use, but potentially very powerful
PBwiki – Can create your own free wiki, pay
for more features Simple but less sophisticated
Wikispaces Also simple but more basic Operated by Google
Wiki “flavors”
A PBworks class wiki
Basic editing tools: Typographical, internal & external links, media, tables.
Page tab tools: Attached discussion, page history.
User tools: Watchlist, contributions, user talk. Advanced tools: Templates & transclusion, bots,
extensions, Javascript tools.
Wiki Tools
WIKIS AS RESOURCES
Wikipedia, and dBpedia,, and LearnChemistry wiki
The biggest collection of human knowledge ever created
Although it has a radically different method for content creation, studies show that it is as good, or better than, traditional encyclopedias
We can’t avoid it – but why should we want to! Let’s teach our students to use it properly!
Wikipedia
WikiTrust
Downloadable as an extension to Firefox, this adds a tab above the article:
Wikipedia as a resource
Wikipedia can provide a valuable service to students: Context A portal to the literature Quick definitions, facts Source of images
Quality is now much better, and can be roughly checked – but Wikipedia is still not 100% reliable
GLAM – Many museums (e.g., Smithsonian) now have a “Wikipedian in residence” uploading materials
Expect to see more books, flash drives etc with Wikipedia content
Wikimedia Commons – pictures, videos dBpedia – A searchable database that allows
complex queries: “Find all baseball players born in NY State between 1918 and 1925.”
Related resources
An example of a more specialized site – but other wikis exist for many other subjects
Student-friendly information on over 2000 chemical substances
Around 120 experiments aimed at UK high schools
A selection of quizzes at many levels Tutorials and guides on specific topics
RSC LearnChemistry
Global site search for RSC content
LearnChemistry wiki
Quizzes
Write your own quiz:
Open organic chem questions
Lab pages- overviews
Lab pages – teacher notes
Lab pages – student procedure
Substance pages – built from the ChemSpider database
Structure searching…..
takes us here
Wikis can do much more than text: Pictures, video links, Powerpoints, PDFs, etc Mashups containing content from other sites Quizzes – even open-ended quizzes, with the right
extensions! Forms to make it easier to write new content “Bots” allow automation of standard edits Collaborative projects (in next section)
Lessons from LearnChemistry wiki
USING A WIKI AS A PLATFORM FOR COLLABORATIVE LEARNING
An online course taught on a MediaWiki platform set up on the college server.
All course materials embedded in the wiki (e.g., schedules, Powerpoint lessons) or linked from it (e.g., assigned readings, additional resources). Blackboard was used only for grades & a final exam
Regular synchronous discussions held using an IM-style chat
Students participate in a role-play where they share Powerpoints in real time
Students also share their term papers via the wiki
An in-house wiki for “The Sustainable World”
Main course page
Course schedule
Discussions held in EtherPad
Organic chemistry students were given a three-week research project to make anisyl alcohol from anisaldehyde: Research the literature as a group, share results in real
time and choose a “best method” Run the chosen method in lab Isolate product and analyze results
Results were recorded in the LearnChemistry wiki, as well as in the course Moodle site
The wiki was particularly useful for sharing data during the literature research session
RSC LearnChemistry projects
Overview page
Literature search results uploaded by student “scribes”
Poster projects shared via the Web
Advanced organic chemistry students write up a synthesis both as a poster and as a web page.
Students in different lab sessions carry out a series of related experiments, then results are uploaded by a TA
This allows students to contribute to a bigger overall goal. When they “see the big picture”, this adds meaning to their results
Data are open and available for use by scientists Students write up a full-length lab report which
includes a discussion of the entire class’s data We hope that other colleges may be willing to
share their results on the same wiki
Collaborative experiments
Wiki table of recrystallization data
Students can learn lessons from their mistakes, and pass that information on to successor students.
“Many students do not see traditional lab reports as communications of their findings but rather as an assignment. Implementation of a wiki communication medium between peers has allowed students to see the value of sharing their results”
UOIW: Lab students sharing lessons learned
John Stankus, University of the Incarnate Word, TX. © UOIW
Wikipedia projects SUNY Potsdam Sedimentary Geology
Students prepare drafts on a college wiki then transfer them to Wikipedia
Help is available for your campus!
Benefits of wiki-based projects Students can:
Learn about collaboration, and how to behave appropriately in a group project
Learn how to follow rules, which can be very strict in the case of Wikipedia
Learn about the academic process Information literacy Peer review It’s hard work! Contribute to the world’s academic resources
See their work published on the Web for all to see. With Wikipedia the reach is amazing -(70,000 hits/year for the Clastic rock article)
Wikis provide some valuable educational resources on the internet, especially for user-generated content
Wikis can also provide a unique platform for coursework, especially useful for: Group collaboration, especially on writing Sharing information rapidly within a group, or even
perhaps between groups Allowing students to share their work with the
world
Conclusion
Acknowledgements
Michael C. Rygel (Geology, SUNY Potsdam) Wikipedia projects in the classroom
Thanks to my coworkers at RSC: Lorna Thomson, Duncan McMillan, RSC Education Dr. Aileen Day, RSC ChemSpider Dr. Antony Williams, RSC ChemSpider
Also thanks to Dr. Richard Kidd, RSC Publications Dr. James Iley, RSC Education Many Wikipedians including Users Beetstra, Physchim62,
Smokefoot Dr. Luca de Alfaro and the WikiTrust team
Copyright information
All of my own content in this presentation is released under a Creative Commons BY-SA-3.0 license
Copyright information for images is usually attributed on the slide itself
Content from Wikipedia and RSC LearnChemistry is reused via a Creative Commons BY-SA-3.0 license. For authors, please visit the original page and select the “history” tab.
Other pictures not attributed should only be my own personal pictures, also CC-BY-SA3.
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