Week 7 - Thing 16 & 17

Wikis. Wiki's are a great addition to the internet. The most famous of them is of course Wikipedia, the online library that grows and is updated daily. That is of course the advantage and the disadvantage at the same time. Everyone and anyone can make changes and while most of the information requires citations and sources, there are many articles which only reflect the opinion of the contributor. While to some extent this is true also in the case of traditional encyclopedia's, the latter go through a much more rigorous editing process than the wikipedia.

For much of the information, wikipedia suffices but like in all cases, sources need to be verified before accepting information as fact.

I have used wiki's in a school setting at CSUN and I am ambivalent about its use. On the one hand I like the idea of being able to make corrections to someones wiki but on the other hand I hate the idea of messing with someones post just because my view is different. Even though the original author will get a notification of the change and may reverse the change, this can become a lot of work in a hurry if one is a prolific wiki-er. Also, I don't know if I really want to change someone's wiki other than perhaps fix some spelling errors. Conversely, I don't know if I want someone else to change my contributions.

Overall though, I think wiki's can be a lot of fun for many of the reasons posted on the sll2.0 site. for note taking in class, it is wonderful. Students who were not there that day can go there and find info they would not otherwise have. If all students collaborate on this and add/modify/clarify from their own notes, this can be tremendously useful.

As an idea I posted the following :

Idea #59: I see a lot of ideas for language arts, social science and other writing intensive subjects but none for math. As a simple idea, students can share different ways they know how to solve problems. The teacher can give one topic per week and students can add/correct/modify their way of doing things. There are so many students from different backgrounds with so many different ways to solve problems..

Having received my own math education in the Netherlands, I can see first hand how things are done differently in different countries. One just as valid as the other. It could help students to see how things are solved using different methods and techniques and if they like one method better than the other, then all power to them!