Wisconsin Union Blend

Wikipedia is the product not of collectivism but of unending argumentation; the corpus grows not from harmonious thought but from constant scrutiny and emendation. (Many to Many)

As hinted in a previous post on differences between wikis and blogs, wikis aren’t always used for collaborative writing. And, as the quote above reminds us, “collaboration” might not be cooperative collaboration in every wiki project.

The various ways in which “collaboration” works (or doesn’t), in different wiki projects is possible because wikis are so inherently flexible, and so initially blank, that creative folks come up with an endless supply of new ideas on how to put them to use. Even with the wide range of potential applications, most academic wiki projects seem to fall somewhere on a spectrum between two approaches to wiki collaboration:

the compilation approach: multiple authors contribute their part to a growing collection of knowledge
the consensus approach: authors work together (or perhaps against each other) to write an evolving document that reflects the perspectives of multiple contributors

The compilation approach (aka the knowledge base)

The majority of academic wiki projects I’ve seen use wikis primarily as an efficient way for a group of people to pool knowledge. Each author adds their 2 cents to the wiki, and, as a reward, benefits from the contributions of the group as a whole. In these projects, the tendency is to not edit the work of others.

An interdisciplinary project at UW-Parkside, created by Wendy Leeds Hurwitz and Shi Hae Kim is a good example:

At UW-Parkside in fall 2006, COMM 310: Communication in Everyday Life linked with TEDU 210: Teaching, Learning and Development. We put the students into groups across courses, and gave them a wiki designed to permit easy sharing of information. The Education students observed K-12 classrooms and posted fieldnotes to the wiki. The Communication students made videotapes of interaction in the same classrooms, and posted the videos, as well as transcriptions, to the wiki. All students were asked to read 10 sources and post their notes to the wiki. We created FAQ, a glossary of specialized vocabulary, and a “water cooler” where anyone could ask a question and anyone else could answer. Each student and group had their own pages, linked to those of others. Then each drew on the information collected in the wiki to write an individual paper (which was not posted to the wiki). - adapted from WiscWiki’s list of UW wiki projects

In this project, the wiki acts as an efficient clearinghouse for the data students are collecting on their classroom visits, rather than as a collaborative writing platform. Students read and draw on each others contributions, and work together to keep the resource organized, but don’t actually edit each others work.

The consensus approach

Less common, in the academic wiki projects I’ve seen, is to use the wiki as a central point for collaboration, argumentation, and consensus building.

One example is the Choose your Own Adventure mystery novel project from an intermediate French class at UW-Madison.

For this project, students worked together in groups to write a “Choose Your Own Adventure” mystery novel in French. Each group collaborated on a chapter of the story and decided on the choices the main character would make at the end of the chapter. Other groups joined in and wrote chapters corresponding to each choice. All in all, each class wrote a story with eight possible endings. - adapted from Wiki Ideas Galore!

Like many wiki projects, this one involves both the compilation and consensus approaches. The story as a whole is a compilation of the chapters submitted by each group. Each chapter is a result of collaboration and consensus among group members. (It is interesting to note however that this project was structured such that much of the consensus building and decision making happened verbally in class rather than on the wiki.)

How does your wiki work?

When I first got started working with wikis, I expected to see many more projects focused on argumentation, debate, and consensus building. I’ve been happy to see the many compilation oriented projects succeed, and it has been fascinating to see how powerful wikis can be for efficient information sharing.

But, I’m beginning to wonder - How well do wikis work for consensus oriented collaborative writing projects in academia? Are there models out there to follow? What makes these wiki projects work? Do wikis need a richer set of collaboration oriented features?

My thanks to Dorothea Salo of the General Library Technology Group for reminding me about the WikiMatrix. This site reviews and compares the many wikis that are out there. It is not a resource to which I would point the average faculty member or other instructional staff, but I think it is really useful for those IT support folks who get inquiries from the campus community on what it would take to install a wiki on a department server.

The use of iTunes U. for automatic feed creation has made podcasting very easy and convenient for instructors on our campus. They are very happy with this convenience. Just upload a file and POOF! the feed is updated. In the end, the only indication that the podcast tracks are available via subscription is a very tiny, grey ‘Subscribe’ button.

But we’ve learned through surveys that students are not hitting that button. The reasons are numerous:

1. Students access iTunes U. via our course management system, D2L. They are often in the system for other reasons like taking quizzes, checking grades or writing in discussion boards, so these audio and video files (I won’t call them podcasts) for their courses are never far away. Students figure, “Why do I need to subscribe when the files are just as easy to get to when I’m in D2L?”
2. iTunes U. allows the student to view or listen to the audio and video right off the servers in California. There is no need to download them to the local computer.
3. When you couple #1 and #2 with the fact that the campus has ubiquitous wireless and lots of computer labs spread throughout, students have easy access to their podcasts from pretty much anywhere on campus that has a computer. With such access, there is less need to download the files for viewing at time when you don’t have network access.
4. Students don’t want to put academic podcasts on their iPods if they don’t have to because these materials take up space that could otherwise be used for storing music or videos.
5. Most instructors are not creating materials that leverage or necessitate the portability of an iPod. Some have done audio or video flashcards that allow students to practice/learn in the field or in non-traditional learning environments, but the majority of the content can be consumed at the student’s desktop or laptop.
6. iTunes U. makes the process of feed creation so seamless that the purpose of and technology behind that ‘Subscribe’ button goes unnoticed, unused and unappreciated.
7. Finally, as a learning technology consultant, explaining the value of subscription in this environment is especially challenging. Given everything I just said, instructors wonder, “Now why should students subscribe?” I’ll address how we go about this in a later post.

So while iTunes U. makes “podcasting easier,” the fact that the ‘Subscribe’ button and RSS feed don’t get used means, to me, that this is not podcasting AND we are sacrificing the instructor and students’ understanding of the technology for what is easier and more convenient.

This bothers me.

So far at Union Blend we’ve developed, or perhaps stumbled our way into, three general formats for our blog posts

• short tips like this one
• links to interesting online tools and resources (like this post on the RSS toolbox), and
• longer articles on things like the differences between wikis and blogs.

These are just three examples of the 7 basic posting formats listed by Amy Gahran on her excellent blog Contentious:

1. Link-only
2. Link blurb
3. Brief remark
4. List
5. Short article
6. Long article
7. Series postings

Wait a minute? Formats? Isn’t blogging supposed to be totally free-from?

Well, it can be, of course, but while we would never argue that you should develop and stick by blogging formats at the expense of creativity, thinking about post formats for your blog can be useful for you, your readers, and for your students if you’re introducing them to blogging.

For blog writers, having a few post formats at your disposal can help you set the scope of your post as you sit down to write. If your blog usually has a mix of short and long posts, for example, it is easier to break up a lengthy, difficult to write post into a series of shorter, more manageable ones. Developing a new format can also spark creativity. This was certainly true for me when Ron posted the first podcasting tip, because it helped me realize that we could use Union Blend to gradually develop a big library of little, but very useful instructional technology tips without trying to write them all down in one sitting.

For your readers, a set of post formats can help develop a set of expectations about your blog. Also, when tied to categories (or tags), post formats can be a great way to provide your readers with an organizational structure that makes your blog easy to navigate. And, at least one blogger has argued that breaking up the rhythm of your blog with a few different formats can make your blog a more interesting read.

For your students, developing, modeling, and perhaps explicitly discussing a few types of blogging formats will help your students understand what you’re hoping to find in their blog writing, and may make it easier for them to hop in and get started when faced with the big empty text box of their first blog post.

See also:

• Doug’s blogging links - a growing list of blogging resources.