Faculty TEL Leadership Wiki
When this year's DMC faculty fellows began to brainstorm with DMC consultants about how they could support their peers' TEL efforts, they hit on the idea of creating a wiki about TEL at the University of Minnesota.
"A Wiki or 'wiki' . . . is a website (or other hypertext document collection) that allows users to add content, as on an Internet forum, but also allows anyone to edit the content. "Wiki" also refers to the collaborative software used to create such a website."
This definition comes from Wikipedia, an extensive online encyclopedia that has been collaboratively written and developed. Anyone with an interest or expertise in a topic may contribute or edit content. The potential hazards of collaboration on such a wide scale are obvious, ranging from poor or inaccurate writing to malicious intent. What is perhaps most surprising, then, is that Wikipedia gravitates toward excellence. The quality of a wiki isn't guaranteed by any safeguards built into the technology, but by a self-selected and interested community.
In keeping with the nature of the wiki, the faculty fellows didn't begin with a design plan, specify an audience, or determine the scope of the site or the content. All of this is being negotiated on the site as people contribute and edit one another's work.
For example, on February 14, the purpose of the faculty fellows' wiki was described on its home page as:
This wiki is for use by the 2004-2005 DMC Faculty Fellows. We will use this wiki to create and edit pages for the TEL Seminar and discuss strategies for Departmental Support.
By March 20, this description had been edited and added to many times until it evolved into the following:
Statement of Purpose
This site is being initiated by Digital Media Center 2004 - 2005 Faculty Fellows (http://dmc.umn.edu/fellowship/index.shtml) at the University of Minnesota. It is designed for current and prospective students, staff, and faculty who are interested in learning or sharing information about TEL at the University.
Goals
We've initiated this site in order to
- explore the wiki as a collaborative tool for gathering and disseminating information across campus units;
- explore the process of collaboration;
- create something useful for the academic community;
- create a platform for discussing and sharing information about TEL;
- support instructors in their efforts to enhance student learning using technology;
- reflect on how we learn emerging technologies and their potential use for enhancing student learning;
- see what happens next.
By now, the faculty fellows' wiki home page could have evolved further. Any subscriber could have accessed a Page History page displaying all changes to this text and chosen to make further changes, restore previous versions, or add additional information.
Seminar
At the next TEL seminar, the moderator and panelists below will introduce the faculty fellows' wiki:
May 3, 2005
12:00-1:30 P.M.
402 Walter Library, East Bank, Twin Cities campus
UMConnect Meeting recording of the seminar
Moderator:
Linda Jorn
DMC, Twin Cities campus
Panelists:
Lee-Ann Kastman Breuch
rhetoric, Twin Cities campus
Angela Carlson-Lombardi
Spanish/Portuguese, Twin Cities campus
Simon Hooper
curriculum/instruction, Twin Cities campus
Donna Pearson
curriculum and instruction, Twin Cities campus
Edward Ratner
internal medicine, Twin Cities campus
The fellows will explain how the idea for a wiki grew out of a discussion about bringing TEL-related issues back to their own departments, explore how wikis may be used to quickly gather and document information and ideas, reflect on why they might or might not use wikis for teaching, and discuss the process and challenge of growing and administering a wiki site.
Bibliography
The following articles may help you research how wikis can be used for teaching and learning.
Barton, Matt. Embrace the Wiki Way! 21 May 2004. http://www.mattbarton.net/tikiwiki/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=4.
In this brief article, posted on his Web page, Barton provides a basic definition of a wiki, offers a list of "good" and "bad" pedagogical uses for them, and challenges others to find additional ways to use wikis effectively.
Lamb, Brian. "Wide Open Spaces: Wikis, Ready or Not." Educause Review 39, no. 5 (2004): 36-48. http://www.educause.edu/pub/er/erm04/erm0452.asp.
In this engaging article, Lamb provides not only an overview of what wikis are, but also examples of academic and non-academic uses and the "standard" arguments against their use. In the last half, he discusses the use of wikis in higher education, including the challenges instructors face, such as how to relinquish control of the space to use it effectively in the course setting; how to determine authorship and assign credit; and how to deal with intellectual property, copyright, and technical issues.
