1. Jens on July 29, 2004 4:37 PM writes...

I love the idea of wikis, but I've never had any successful experiences with them. I tried to learn Atom from its wiki, which I found to be bewildering and incomprehensible; only when an actual spec was published did I find something I could use. We have a wiki on my project at work, and we have used it a little bit, but mostly it sits idle.

The total lack of structure annoys me to no end. Maybe the people who build and evangelize wikis prefer that; they seem to find it a strength. I think they've just ended up building a tool that's great for people who think the way they do but not for others. I _want_ structure. Communicating and working out ideas is difficult enough that I have no use for a tool that simply flops everything down on the ground in a big tangle.

2. kellan on July 29, 2004 5:03 PM writes...

Given the right exposure, and help getting started my experience has been (in small groups with mixed technical backgrounds) that wikis are *very* popular. However I think most people's initial (and ongoing) exposures to wikis is all wrong.

A few things which are going wrong:
* wikis have gotten *hard*. this goes against the very concept of a wiki, and yet to use a system like MoinMoin, or Twiki requires learning.

* no initial guidance given. just installing a wiki and saying "have at it" is of course an invitation to failure. until a structure emerges wikis require guided effort.

* too often people go with the default install, which is both ugly, and cluttered with irrelevant information.

A couple of ideas I've seen starting to crop up in "next generation" wikis which I think could be really helpful are:

* some hierarchy. a number of wikis have added a sort of half implemented "sub-page" concept, and Twiki has its "Webs", which are both attempts to provide some order, but neither go quite far enough.

* fuzzy linking, which allows you to link to another page in the wiki without the ExactRightComboOfWords.

I don't think its a problem with the idea, but with the implementation.

3. phil jones on July 29, 2004 6:14 PM writes...

The problem I see is that people don't really know what wikis are for.

Wikis are group text (or hypertext) authoring tools. They're great for letting people collate a bunch of information; for extracting information from a group. Or for structuring that information into some kind of document.

But I'm not sure what you should expect from them when people *don't* have a lot of information that needs collating.

For example, what I'd really like to understand about Heather's use in the class-room was the purpose of her classes. If they were to transmit knowledge from her (or sources selected by her) to the students, then I don't see that wiki would help much. Except, as she used it, as a kind of basic coursework management system where each student should submit / publish their work.

But I don't see any opportunity there for each student to interact with, contribute to, criticise or otherwise modify the work of the next. And I suspect that most students didn't come with a lot of information to share with the others.

(This comment also at : http://www.nooranch.com/synaesmedia/wiki/wiki.cgi?WikiInTheClassRoom)

4. Adina Levin on July 29, 2004 7:42 PM writes...

A wiki without social conventions for organization is like a meeting without an agenda.

If you gather a group of people together around a table, they will have an unfocused conversation, unless someone has thought through and communicated the topics and goals for the meeting.

The agenda is not a "feature" of the table (!) Yet people know to create an agenda, because that is a social norm for an effective meeting.

The table does not enforce the agenda -- chairs doen't give shocks to people who speak out of turn. The meeting agenda is carried out, with some flexibility, by the meeting facilitator and participants.

When people are looking for wikis to "be organized" by themselves they are looking to the wrong place. People plan meetings, and people organize wikis.

There are social practices for organizing wikis, just like there are social practices for organizing meetings.

Most business software is like a table with a built-in set of agendas that are generic for a few kinds of meetings, and chairs that shock a speaker if she talks out of turn. The agenda designer is invisible, and long gone.

A wiki is more like a normal meeting room, which you can use for any kind of meeting. But the participants need to do the organizing and facilitating.

5. Ted Ernst on July 30, 2004 2:14 AM writes...

We're using a wiki in our housing co-op development group and it's a VERY useful tool for creating bylaws and other documents collaboratively. Without the wiki we'd each have to seperately download the source document (each of us one at a time) and make our individual edits and upload the whole thing again. With the wiki we can all work at once as well as bring up questions to each other as appropriate.

6. Ed Taekema on July 30, 2004 5:17 PM writes...

From my point of view, a well established wiki is not unstructured at all. Rather, the structure is community developed and owned. The point is not structure vs. no structure, but ownership.

7. Reed on July 31, 2004 7:50 AM writes...

Adina, Ted, and Ed have said exactly what I was going to say more or less. Wikis aren't really for point to point communication in the way the phone or email are, they are a place to put text for a bunch of people to all work on together. And yes, you have to come up with some structure for it yourself, usually this will not be so hard since you already know what kind of text(s) you are trying to create.

8. Lion Kimbro on July 31, 2004 2:50 PM writes...

One problem with using wiki in a classroom is the boundaries of the classroom.

The classroom walls and the beginning and ending of a semester are arbitrary bindings.

Most websites know that it'd be insane to not let Google index them: No indexing means no exposure which means no interaction.

Why then arbitrarily limit your learning to the classroom walls and the semester? It's sort of like a website cutting itself off from google: You're arbitrarily limiting the interactions of social learning.

You may be interested in:

http://communitywiki.org/WikiAsYouLearn

9. JamesJayTrouble on August 1, 2004 4:45 PM writes...

"A wiki without social conventions for organization is like a meeting without an agenda."

A group of people engaging in a common activity without social conventions?

Explain please, how this is possible, because it isn't. As I just wrote on another thread, a wiki is a problem looking for a solution to undo.

People who can't deal with the reality of structure tend to gravitate to the meme that wikis are useful. Mostly the younger generation, which wasn't raised by the hippy generation to worry about ugly things like realities.

"The classroom walls and the beginning and ending of a semester are arbitrary bindings."

Lookit, I understand that having awareness located in space/time can be limiting, to some extent.

But this "think outside the box" meme has gone way, Way, WAY beyond it's utility. The box is reality. Being creative and imaginative requires "seeing beyond the current reality", to seeing something useful that other's may not have seen yet.

But thinking so far outside the box that space/time no longer exist?

I see this kind-a "logic" all the time in bloggers and the younger writers. Like "disruptive technology". Anybody that ever actually implemented a piece of technology would know how stupid this phrase is. And "radical decentralization" is another great meme.

In the old days, that was simply called "being an airhead" or "totally outta control", and now that's seen as a good thing.

:

I give up.

Winer wins... The only credential needed now is a big mouth and a PC, and enough people to say that is the reality.

Thanks for reading, those that did. Thanks even more to those that attempted to "listen".. ie, actually comprehend...;-D

10. DougHolton on August 2, 2004 10:56 AM writes...

There are many examples of wikis being used successfully for educational purposes, see: http://edtech.coedit.net/EducationalWikiList

But I do believe that wikis alone are not good enough. You need some modifications if you want to adapt it more easily to the institutional/social structure. Such as wysiwyg editing, access control levels, integration with weblogs, databases, course management tools, etc. In the end it looks more like moodle or postnuke or drupal instead of just a plain wiki. The TECFA SEED project calls them C3MS tools: http://tecfa.unige.ch/proj/seed/catalog/papers.html

11. Bill Seitz on August 2, 2004 3:33 PM writes...

Jens, what kind of structure would make your ProjectWiki more useful?

What kind of project is it, if you don't mind sharing?

12. JamesJayTrouble on August 2, 2004 6:16 PM writes...

I'll give this one more shot.

"There are many examples of wikis being used successfully for educational purposes, see:"

And the control group? Or is that no longer done??

From the Pfaffenberg site on TikiWiki:

http://tikiwiki.org/tiki-index.php?page=LearningManagementCaseStudyPfaffenberger

"It is exceptionally difficult to figure out how to build technology into the learning process..."

:

In this application enables me to eliminate the dreaded 750-word paper assignment, in which students try to "psych out" the professor (and generally write dreadful papers). Instead, they write for their classmates, and the results are built into the larger dialogue and debate that occurs in the classroom. My students LOVE this application — and so do I."

First off, the approach is backwards. A sensible approach would be to see whether technology is helpful or harmful to the education process and act accordingly. Rather than start with "how do I jam some technology into the process, because jamming technology into a process is guaranteed to be an improvement".

Second off, I'm sure some are familiar with the concept that students will love writing for their classmates instead of the teacher, by definition. No grades from the classmates.

So how does a wiki, as a piece of technology, serve as an improvement over posting articles on any other kind of website?

(This would illustrate the reason why scientists attempt to set up a control group. There isn't much in favor of wiki's, as a technology, other than Professors love it and enthusiasm is a good aid to teaching.)

Btw, why should students be forced to submit their papers to the public at large, as well as their classmates. Are these ALL classes on public speaking or writing...?? I mean, other than the Professor wants to jam technology into the process?

This pitch-and-catch sounds REAL CATCHY...! (That's a point against, in my book.) How much time is going to feeding the technology?? Iow, I assume a controlled study would also measure whether the time doing all the upkeep on the wiki set-up could be better used spending time with students.

Group projects provide interesting educational opportunities, and can't help but wonder if THAT is the primary, if not sole, advantage of these exercises, rather than the wiki (or any) technology utilized itself?