Paul's ETEC 565 Experience & Domain

I really enjoyed the wiki activity.  I have not had a great deal of experience in this kind of forum but am enjoying it both in 565 and my 522 course.  In this activity I found the discussion wiki a lot more difficult to follow, even with the history tab, whereas in Vista or Moodle you have the option to follow threaded commentary.  This might be a little better to have for the discussion section of the wiki and keep the main page for your collaborative efforts.  In other words, for group collaboration I think it needs to be a little more structured for ease of follow (google wave maybe?).

Wikis  are definite collaborative tools which I look forward to using in the future.  In my other course (522) we are building open education resources (OERs) which highlight the massive potential for not only sharing resources, but building resources with peers.  Ultimately, that is the power of the wiki.

The challenges with working in a wiki have to be the organization, the quality and the participation.  Organization and setup of the wiki space is difficult when you have more than one participant.  Having a leader/role designation might help support this.  Quality is tricky to control when you have to monitor contributions from peers; again a moderator role would be key.  Lastly, participation by the peers is difficult to enforce and peers do this at their individual asynchronous opportunities, which may lopside some of the efforts, but may also highlight some  participant strengths (brainstormers, editors).  Again participant roles may support these efforts.

All in all, I am very, very excited to see wikis become a part of my teaching repertoire!