Denise Buckley
Learning Development Officer
Learning & Teaching Development Unit

10am – 11am: Wikis
Break
11.10am – 12 noon: Blogs

• Hawaiian for Quick! Bus transfer service
Honolulu airport
• A wiki is a website which can be edited individually or collaboratively, using the
Internet browser
• Ward Cunningham, developer of the first wiki
WikiWikiWeb, originally described it as
– "the simplest online database that could possibly work".
(Wikipedia 2007)

First Wiki
Most popular: Wikipedia
Mediawiki (free but need to host system files on a webserver)
Wikispaces (free but can pay for extra functions)
Confluence (Ideal for large scale & corporate institutions)
Writeboard (very simple, free wiki, good introduction)
Jotspot (free, recently purchased by Google)
PBWiki (free, easy to use)

• Browser based editing
• Access control (all visitors or login only)
• Wiki mark up (formatting)
• Tracking version history
• Version comparison
• Page version rollback
• Discussion pages
• Automatic page edit alerts
• Locking current page version

• Open & easy access for editing – open door to malicious changes ( vandalism )
• Vulnerable to spamming ( aims to advertise product or links to websites/improve google search rank )
• Edit wars! ( two contributors with opposing opinions )

• Wiki editing community - deal with problematic edits
• Wikis provide facilities for users to act as administrators ( sysops ) – oversee groups of pages & ability to block users
• Spamming restricted by editing user access & monitoring pages with automatic updates
• Edit wars can be overcome by a Wiki Administrator or by both contributors using Discussion area

• New/different web resource for tutors & student
• Student participation/involvement – active
– Gilly Salmons “ Transformation ”
• Integrate with VLE – Blackboard
• Ideal for group authoring (contributors revealed)
• Flexible for any type of structure/layout
• Collaborative tool
• Web publishing without HTML/Frontpage/Dreamweaver
Improved connectedness, collaboration & construction of knowledge
(Mader, 2006)

• Wiki mark up ( formatting )
• Managing wiki ( commitment )
• No predefined structure
• Open to all ( sensitive information )
• Clear policies ( ownership & copyright of pages )

• Wikis authored by staff
• Wikis authored by students
– ( Group work: assignments, discussions, peer feedback, student feedback to staff, individual portfolios )
• Wikis authored and used by both staff & students
– ( Marking schemes for assignments, subject glossaries, FAQ’s, discussion forum, case studies, writing agendas etc )
• Wikis - publicly available and created by others
– ( source of information, model of how knowledge is constructed, develop writing and research skills by contributing to existing wiki )

Sheffield Hallam University
University of East Anglia
Leeds University

• “
Please help me. I got an F on my paper because I cited Wikipedia…”
(The Wired Campus 2006)
• For Wikipedia :
– Overall information accurate & useful
– errors dealt with quickly & by anyone
– promotes a neutral point of view
– constant peer review by many is better than one off review by few
• Against Wikipedia :
– Inaccuracy!

• Motivating students to participate
– Assign authoring/editing responsibilities to individuals or groups
– Use interaction as part of assessment
– Integrate wiki into course
• Provide direction & student ownership
– Initiate interactions but allow student autonomy
• Monitoring & assessing
– Monitor for inappropriate content, control edit wars, track individual participation & provide feedback

• http://pbwiki.com
• http://ltdu.pbwiki.com

• Short for web log
– Original blogs – link driven – listed links of interest
– Personal journal – independent of web logs – Blog (online diary)
• A blog is a user-generated website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in reverse order
(recent entries first).
(Wikipedia 2007)
• One of most common types of website on the Internet – over 66 million!
( Technorati Feb 2007)
• Used for:
– personal diaries
– Opinions
– journalist reports,
– real-time commentary on live events
– providing news
– customer/student help information

Blogger (free and most popular, now owned by Google)
WordPress (free alternative)
Bloglines (free blog tool with other facilities such as search and subscriptions to blogs and news)
Typepad (a subscription based blog system aimed at commercial applications)
Elgg (Open source software (non-commercial) for social networking that can host a community of blogs (Swansea,
Leeds Universities) http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/index.html

• Authorising tools
• Search facility
• Add public comments
• Automatic archiving of previous entries
• News feed – subscribe to a specific blog & receive automatic alerted to new posts

1. Reading existing blogs
– Add comments
2. Writing own blog

• New/different web resource for tutors & student
• Student participation – active –
– Gilly Salmons “Transformation”
• Integrate with Blackboard
• Flexible for any type of structure/layout
• Encourages Reflection
• Encourages writing skills
• Facility for visitors to leave comments –
– contacts can be made, discussions built upon, communities formed

• Entirely owned by author –
– no control over what is posted for public viewing
– Blogging system hosted by the University – Staff member control to remove offensive postings
• Externally hosted systems allow anonymous postings in comments area!!
• Long term blogging requires motivation and desire to participate
– Encourage students to engage in subjects and communities of interest
– Start with reading
– Then reflect, criticize, question, react
• (the writing of a blog is the exposure of your thoughts)

Students :
• Personal Development Portfolios
• Project Logs
• Placement Journals
– Feedback & support can be directly given
• Groups blogs (seminar sessions, summaries of group work)
• Peer assessment & review
• Alumni communities for graduates
Staff :
• Post course details & related news, organise seminars, in class discussion, reference materials, opinions on publications, FAQ’s

5 applications for blogs in the classroom
1.
Replace traditional webpages
2.
Linking websites – blogs written about websites
3.
In class discussion
4.
Class seminars & summaries of readings
5.
Writing own blogs
(Downes, 2006)

University of Warwick
Highest profile academic blogging system in the UK – launched 2004 – designed & built specifically for staff & students – 4000 blogs hosted
University of Glamorgan
UWIC

• Questions :
– Who is going to author a blog, tutor or student or both?
– How will you motivate the students?
– Which blogs will be read by students?
– How will you assess the quality of the information in the blog?
– Will students be encouraged to enter into discussions etc?
– How will you monitor the blogs?
– If using blogs for assessment – how will it be marked?
– Time length for blogs?
– Evaluation if added to the teaching & learning experience?

• http://www.blogger.com
• http://denise-learningandteaching.blogspot.com

• Campus Pack (Learning Objects)
– Wikis
– Blogs
– Facility to store Podcasts
– PDP: E-Portfolios per student account
– Search tools
• Trial in November
• Roll out January