Highpoint Symposium - Workshop 3 - Using wikis to enhance group tasks

The widening participation agenda in higher education has seen a growing problem with the issue of retention, the recognition of the importance of encouraging students into deep learning and also the need to improve their motivation by providing a rich learning environment. The role of group working has long been recognised as an important element in addressing these issues. This session is based on work undertaken by Jon Philpott and the use of wikis by teams in a non-teaching environment; and also on work undertaken as part of a Research Informed Teaching Award project by Mike Leigh and Lucy Mathers which looked at the use of wikis & blogs to facilitate group working and the development of on-line learning communities.

In this workshop Jon will discuss the motivators behind the decision to adopt the use of wikis by the Data Management section of the Registry. He will then explore some of the problems encountered and solutions implemented when integrating a wiki within their team to enable them build shared knowledge bases. Mike and Lucy will then highlight the impact of using Web2.0 technologies within Blackboard for a range of student group work.

There will also be some audience participation in the seeking of staff attitudes towards the use of such technologies within a teaching environment.

Mile Leigh

Everything Flows – Jay Cross CEO Internet Time Group

The theme of the conference was based around – Driving workforce performance through learning and development – which looked at the what, the how, and the why of learning and development in this day and age using technologies. The conference kicked-off with Jay Cross, an e-learning guru, and is (I learned later in other session) well regarded and revered by other prominent figures in the community. Jay’s name and work was continuously referred to in other lecturers, I got a feeling of Jay being a sort of patron figure in the LT community.

Jay’s address was slow paced, albeit with lots of interesting information and thoughts. Jay started off by explaining his first slide and his afterthought of changing the title from Learning: All change to Everything Flows.

In summary, Jay spoke about the rampant pace at which technology is moving, and the unpredictable nature of it impeding planning ahead. Seventy-Five percent of organisations think that their existing training provisions are inadequate to maintain a knowledgeable and competitive workforce. Coupled with a budding young workforce who have no time for training, the only way organisations will thrive in the future is to perpetually rethink how employees should learn and develop.

Jay went on to say that he thought there are some advantages of the Internet that will tie things back to learning and development, and how we can exploit these to our advantage. He further highlighted “Take Instant Messaging which makes networks in silos internally without restriction of hierarchy”. Some ‘Beta’ Web 2.0 and Open Source services empower users to use software for free however reclaim feedback and development as payment. Jay encouraged the crowd to adapt the free services that are available, “Microsoft wants you to think that Open Source is made by hippies on a beach who’ve had too much to smoke”.

Jay continued by defining 3 characteristics of successful learning to take place: Comprehension, Conversation, and Collaboration. These 3 things can be supported with various ‘free’ web tools for the benefit of an organisation.

• For instance to set meetings use Doodle
• Share info through podcasts using Audacity, a mic, and a podcatcher
• Set-up Blogs and Wikis (Blogger and Wordpress) for process, procedures, and activities
• Use RSS feeds to alert and send messages
• Facebook for profiles
• Ning to start your own community around an interest
• Del.icio.us for bookmarks.

And don’t ban people from accessing the Internet!

Jay then shared some very insightful examples of Blue chip companies and the US Military using these new technologies to disseminate message and display transparent communication:

Tootsie Rolls and the US Military

Tootsie Rolls are chocolate flavoured sweets that have become somewhat of an American cultural icon. The US military would occasionally airdrop to servicemen as a treat to increase morale. However, the noise in unwrapping the sweet was detrimental to the servicemen who were constantly being targeted by snipers. Somebody blogged about this and within a little time news spread like wildfire, to the benefit of the military. Jay added “Now you can’t imagine the National Defence Manual mentioning this little tip would you!”

Jonathan Schwartz, CEO Sun Microsystems

Jonathan Schwartz CEO for Sun Microsystems frequently speaks directly to his workforce directly though his blog. So everybody gets the message at once. Jay added that Jonathan’s style of writing was such that it made him feel that Jonathan was really speaking to him.

I remembered another quote from a speaker in a different session that is related to Jay’s account of Jonathan Schwartz; “How many times in a year does your CEO speak to you?” asked the speaker, “Even if you do get a couple of annual address, they speak to you collectively in a lecture theatre”. A CEO’s blog is a leader’s personal voice to a worker, and many times to associated businesses too.

For example when Sun Microsystems decided on acquiring MYSQL, Jonathan knew that there will be much buzz and a little rumour flying here and there, so what better way to address this and keep confidence of his workforce and to contain the newly acquired company nerves by videoing the executive’s conversation around a picnic table basking in some sun. OK so there’s chances of it being staged but the comment section on the same post bears testimony to the success of this strategy.

Sun Microsystems and mySQL Excecutives have a chat and video it for the workforce

Intel Wiki

Josh Bancroft thought of the idea a repository to store a myriad of acronyms that flow around Intel Corp. in a wiki. There were 13 million hits in one year and they were all internal!

Jay then finished off the session by taking some questions from the audience.

DMOS Wiki – Ever expanding

Jon P from Data Management writes...
Originally DMOS (Data Management and Operational Service) wanted access to a Wiki so we could put together a knowledge base for the all new HESA2007 return. For previous HESA returns we have relied for documentation on several folders, lots of web sites, many Word documents, Excel and Visio diagrams. A Wiki, we thought, could bring all of the new knowledge together, and make our lives easier. Thanks to Richard we got our wish and we were successfully wiki’d up.

From a slow start we are now all using and adding pages to the HESA area, but things have snowballed. The Wiki has expanded from documenting the HESA return to documenting more of our DMOS processes, including: Training, ADS, QLS V4, Enrolment. I have also now added a DMOS Forum and a DMOS Blog to the Web 2.0 team, but we are yet to really use them in anger.

If that is not enough we have had to change the Area name from DMOS to Registry as the Web 2.0 word has spread, and I have been asked to add Content Areas for the other Registry Departments. Soon there will be wikis for Timetabling, SESD, Exams, Awards and all the other Registry departments. These will go live once I have met with Richard to iron out the House Rules and set up a general Registry Help Forum.

I am expecting there will be lots of imaginative uses of the new resources and I am hoping that being able to involve the whole team in the process of documenting a procedure will draw out not only better documentation but also better procedures.

WP1: PG Cert HE session - part 2

Okay, it's day two and we are really focused upon wikis and blogs, and the key issues raised in-class follow...

• How can we use wikis for formative assessment. Simon got his students to answer issues in Health Care Management in week 15 - he took them through how to use them, and over the next week in groups, in-class they engaged with the questions more deeply, and provided feedback to each other. Some embraced the task by creating new pages, others by posting comments on a single page. Time in-class and (student) self-management (setting up rules) were critical.
• How do we separate out group and individual elements in the assessment process?
• How do we validate "perfectly scripted" answers? Here the technology/presentation vehicle is irrelevant.
• How do we ensure a good conceptual grasp at levels 1, 2, 3?
• Blogs are great for reflective logs, with shared/peer/mentor critique.
• Can we use assessment in these tools to engage students in the learning process, through self-management/peer assessment?
• How do we build tasks that stimulate critical literacy?
  
  
  Developing rubrics for peer-assessment is critical.

Wikis in plain English

I went over to the session last week by Lucy Mathers and Mike Leigh (CSE), and Steve McKenzie (HLS) who outlined the ways in which they have embedded wikis into their curricula, to support group-work for on-campus undergraduates, and postgraduate distance learning students. They went on further to demonstrate how wikis can be used to share resources in a collaborative manner, and the concomitant impact upon the assessment process.

Early on in the presentation they showed a video which I though was a great way of introducing a complex idea. And so for those of you who were not able to make it, take a look:

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Web 2.0 resources

I was searching for contact details for a friend, with whom I used to work on the Chic Project at Teesside University [check out the really dodgy photos], when I came across a few really nice resources on Web 2.0. So I thought I'd place/tag them here.

Personal learning environments [a useful look at the practice/theory of personal learning or work environments, focusing upon iGoogle]

Web 2.0 social services for teaching and learning [with a useful case study on wikis]

Comm.unities.of.prac.tice 2.0: how social media support learning in practice [a nice thesis on the use of these tools, especially wikis blogs and social bookmarking, to support learning communities]

Google's Answer to Wikipedia

[Did you here lately that Jimmy Wales founder of Wikipedia has entered the search engine market by creating a search engine to compete against the likes of Google. I thought Google would be well peeved by this, however my suspicions were further confirmed when I heard that Google have decided to demote Wikipedia articles in their search engine results, and now this. I wonder if this is the start of another 'virtual' cold war similar to the notorious Microsoft and Apple decades-long scrap :- Mohamed]

Google's Knol project aims to make online information easier to find and more authoritative. Google recently announced Knol, a new experimental website that puts information online in a way that encourages authorial attribution.

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Using wikis to promote colloborative learning - Seminar

I’m reporting back from a seminar presented by Steve Wheeler (University of Plymouth) – ‘Using Wikis to promote collaborative learning’ at Leicester University. This was a two hour seminar and I feel after going is intended for those who are ‘new’ to the coined concept Web 2.0 - I think were stuck with the term as it’s a way of defining how we can and are engaging with the internet as participants as opposed to merely being passive recipients of information (in Web 1.0!). In his introduction we had the brief about ‘new technology’ (ipods and the social collaborative tools available); and an attendee noted that these technologies are not really that new, people have been sharing photos, videos and views on the web, what is ‘new’ is that today these technologies are more accessible to us. The question for us (involved in higher education) and I’m sure will be evident soon in our ‘projects’ – Do these new technologies create new opportunities in education? Is this a passing trend? Or is there genuine potential to improve the quality of the educational experience and learning outcomes? These are not easy questions to answer, to the first I can say ‘yes’ on the grounds that these technologies enable us to ‘reach’ a much wider audience and allow us to deploy a range of tools in doing so to enhance the learning experience - I do think there is genuine potential in that these ‘new tools or social platforms’ (as well as our existing ones!) are only as valuable if used in a practical manner targeted toward specific goals/pedagogy. If they're used without rhyme or reason, their value - educational or otherwise - is null.

I found the following description of ‘web 2.0’ useful in what these new technologies encapsulate “we are the web, we teach the machine, we render the internet as a living organism. Rather than searching for information by a pre-determined algorithm, we give meaning and order to the multitude of websites by arranging and organizing it in a way that better suits us and can better serve us. That is web 2.0. By that rational the website and service mash-ups for example are web 2.0 because we found new and better ways to organize the information and platforms, in a way that makes more (human) sense” (Source ‘Shay’ – a contributor to the debate of web 2.0 “ . http://www.somewhatfrank.com/2007/02/video_explains_.html#comments
)
[Back to wikis in the educational context]. Steve reported on his experience with using wikis with his students (we were informed that we will be given the link to his presentation which I will add once they have put it up!). Steve’s wiki findings:

‘The good’
· Encouraged critical awareness
· Encouraged more accurate referencing and ‘focus’ of study (i.e. instead of making say a premature judgment in a class environment, more time was given to reflect on views and preparing (for some) on their own comments).
· Deliberating complex ideas

The ‘not so good’
· Assessment of individual work in a collaborative wiki
· Some students do not ‘like’ editing contents of friends, and do not warm so much to idea that ‘others’ can change their work
· Motivating students for continued engagement, someone mentioned the term ‘assessment’!

Steve views wikis as ‘ephemeral’ – the possibility of having the wiki archived as a repository for other students ‘may not have the same impact (heat!) for the ‘learner’. My hot/cold analogy - the more involvement (warm) you have rather than simply passive receiver (cold) the more likely it is to be meaningful and therefore retained. On the otherhand if the passive receiver (cold) does something with the information - the more of value it will be to them. To get the benefits of an aerobic excercise video - you have to particpate , simply watching from your couch won't reap the same rewards.

What is the difference between the wiki and the discussion board?

A Discussion board: read by everybody (within context), written by everybody, only own contributions can be edited.
A Wiki: read by everybody (within context), written by everybody, edited by everybody.

The seminar was going to cover Second Life - 3D wiki! but we ran out of time!

Betty Collis Seminar - "Wikis: Flavour of the month or the tool that can change learning.

Heather and i attended this seminar which was organised by Leicester University as they come to the end of their first year of the Phase 1 Academy e-learning pathfinder HEI's.

Betty explained the build up to the seminar by recapping her two previous seminars related to the subject matter. These were I) the identification of a pedagogical approach that could be classified as a "Contributing Pedagogy" (which was not necessarily about any specific technology) and ii) six different surges of technology which all had claims to be the surge (technology) to 'make a fundamental change' to the way we learn. Betty explained how she has over the years used the 4E model to predict whether these new technologies would have a significant impact.

This lead to the main purpose of the seminar, which was to use the 4e Model to predict whether wiki's could make a significant impact. Using the 4E Model Betty was optimistic that wikis could play a significant part in the way people learned. The 'rider' however is that it all depends on the context and she suggests applying the 4e model to your own situation and organisation will have a bearing on how successful wiki implementation can be.

The thrust of the model is that the practitioner should rate the new technology ( in this case) the wiki, for it's educational effectiveness, ease of use and user engagement ( no rating scheme was suggested). If the sum total has a high rating this is a good start, but the next factor is whether the environmental factors, such as technical support, institutional enthusiasm, innovative culture, leadership etc etc also have a high rating to facilitate the successful introduction of wiki technology.

She cited as a very good example was the wiki at 'Shell' the petroleum company, which has over 40,000 workers/users that contribute enthusiastically and voluntary in a number of different ways to make effective use of the wiki resource. Betty also run through many different examples of successful wiki implementations in a teaching and learning context.

Overview

For me the seminar highlighted two main points.

1. Academic Staff are getting advice and encouragement to use wikis for teaching and learning activities, which is fine, but there is great value in the wiki as a professional development tool. This probably needs a lead from the top and a cultural change in the way things are done - If an academic group has the opportunity to step back and re-assess the way they could share work, share knowledge and share tasks in a collaborative, contributing, learning ethos there may be an opportunity to benefit from the power of the group.
   
2. Apart from the value of any learning that takes place in a wiki learning task, for students the use of wiki's could well be an important transferable skill for use in their own professional development and future work collaborations.
   

Leaving the learning aspect aside another point to ponder and was reinforced from some of Betty's examples is that:

• Wiki's are a good organisational/ administrative tool.

Work-package 1: update

In work-package 1 we are working with new lectures on the PGCertHE programme in order to investigate their current knowledge and usage of Web 2.0 technologies with an aim to promote developmental strategies to support them in using Web 2.0 technologies for teaching and learning packages.

In June, we met with half of the cohort as part of the first part of the module of the PGCertHE, Planning to Teach and Study. New staff were encouraged to participate on a separate blog, Reflections: Web 2.0 in learning and teaching.

Here we have posted a selection of video-clips as stimulus for initial discussion about Web 2.0.

A three-hour e-learning session, designed to build on and progress from these initial discussions and to furnish means of building enhanced institutional knowledge of Web 2.0 and development strategies, is programmed into the activities of Day 2 of this module. Feedback has been very positive.

A product from this is the setting-up of a group wiki in which participants can set up a pedagogical e-learning action plan and, in true collaborative sense, comment on those of others!

Next week, the same occurs with the second half of the cohort, and the above process will be repeated.

Watch this space!

Wikis and the means of production

Now I'm no Marxist, but I am interested in concepts that impact on civil society and the ways in which it is democratised or opened-up. In Marxian terms these include ownership of the means of production, the labour theory of value and, as David Prychitko has noted, alienation from labour and society:


"Marx condemned capitalism as a system that alienates the masses. His reasoning was as follows: Although workers produce things for the market, market forces control things; workers do not. People are required to work for capitalists who have full control over the means of production and maintain power in the workplace. Work, he said, becomes degrading, monotonous, and suitable for machines rather than free, creative people."


The key concepts here that connect into our views of civil society include: control of products and ways of producing them; engaging work; and creativity. These concepts also align with developmntal views of citizen participation, and these are important to me as they are a framework for thinking about Web 2.0 developments. What does it mean to use Web 2.0 in your work? What are your politics of Web 2.0?


A few of us went to a valuable case study discussion of wikis in the classroom, lead by Marija Cubric of the University of Hertforshire Business School. Some of the key points she raised were impacted by the clear pedagogic and epistemologic focus of her wiki - its place in the curriculum, the tasks that built it, and the products of the students' labour were explicitly communicated to its users. Marija highlighted:

• the importance of Vygotsky and social development;


• the links between wiki-based tasks, Bloom's taxonomy of educational competencies, and the scaffolded learning opportunities that they support;


• the critical importance of feedback in the system and for individuals;


• student outcomes in terms of "motivation", "fun", "quality of contributions", "increased in-class interactions";


• raised student expectations for this type of learning opportunity; and


• the impact on assessment [peer, group, weightings etc.] and of increased contact-time.

Marija's talk was not political, but it made me think about issues I've already raised about belonging within a gamer-culture, and what it means to belong to a "community". It also made me think about ownership of the means of production, or the wiki, and its products, which in Web 2.0 environments ought to lie with the producers.

Work-package one-beginnings.

This is Henry Jenkins on digital media and learning. This could be usefully used along with other clips posted here(or similar) in our beginning discussions for work-package one: that is, with staff on the Post-Graduate Certificate in Education. The notion of students becoming 'de-skilled' inside the classroom is an interesting one as is the metaphor of shining a light into a dark cave to discover the contours of a new landscape.

We met today to explore how we might take work-package one further.

We have an early opportunity to engage with some of these staff (an e-learning session on June 27th (day 2 of a 3-day block) as part of the first module on the PGCertHE. We've decided that some kind of investigation into usage of and perceptions about Web 2.0 technologies prior to the session would be useful so will ask a few questions via e-mail and also ask them to engage with at least one of the technologies E.g. by accessing blogging software to write a short blog (or blogs) on a given topic.

The Jenkins clip(or similar) will be shown on Day 1 of the module with a view to promoting discussion about facilitating learning 'outside' the seminar room or lecture theatre.

Other topics we touched on..how far we are able to link project developments with an assessment on the PGCertHE; wider current institutional requirements about e-learning and the place for Web 2.0; follow-ups..how to sustain continued engagement outside designated e-learning development sessions.