Week 4: Wikis

http://www.paulhaist.ca/2010/from-network-drives-to-wikis

Raj: Too bad, I called dibs.
Wolowitz: You can't just call dibs.
Raj: I can, and I did. Look up "dibs" in Wikipedia.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had professors exasperatedly tell the class “Wikipedia is not a reputable source”. However, just because you don’t want your students to use it as an academic source on an essay, doesn’t mean they shouldn’t use it.  Wikipedia is great for pre-research.  If I assign a topic to a student and they have no idea what it even is, I would much rather they take 2 minutes and look it up on Wikipedia to get the gist, than to blindly try to search academic papers when they don’t even understand the topic!  Oftentimes, Wikipedia can be a good jumping off point for students, especially if they take advantage of the references listed at the end of the page which often contain good resources to use to further their understanding and research. 

http://xkcd.com/285/

I’m going to take a cue from Dr. Kate Frego here and use a metaphor for greater understanding. 

Wikis are like whiteboards.

www.cbs.com

• Group members can edit each other’s work as simply as erasing a phrase and writing in their own.   
• Everyone can access it
• The content is easy to edit and rework
• These changes are instantly available to the group.

I personally am involved in the Canadian Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture Network (CIMTAN) which has its own wiki, so all of the members of the network can remain connected and information can be quickly and freely exchanged.  This network involves people all across Canada and it allows everyone to quickly transfer large amounts of information, share presentations, papers and links, and announce upcoming events.  This wiki alone saves thousands of emails (can you imagine the email trails you would have!!!).  

The CIMTAN also has a Wikipedia page for the public.  This page was created and edited by those within the network, so all of the information and photos are legit and also academically sound.  So I believe that while Wikipedia still contains some poorly supported information, it also contains some really good resources and can be beneficial if used properly.  That being said, I would not support Wikipedia as an academic source that can be cited just quite yet, but I believe it is heading in that direction.  Wikipedia is well on its way to being a publicly reviewed resource.  

Some ways I can see using Wikis in the classroom include:

• Group projects
• Editing bad scientific writing (this could be a group project or a contest for the person to correct the most mistakes)
• Summarizing papers
• Abstract writing
• Group discussions when designing an experiment

I think Wikis are a great resource to use to coordinate group work.  I personally am excited to use this both academically and personally.  I always hate trying to make plans for large get-togethers and a wiki would work perfectly for this!

http://planeta.wikispaces.com/buzzwordbingo

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Check out this clip from the The Friendship Algorithm- team-based learning and effective group work thanks to the Big Bang Theory! :D  Reminds me a lot of how a Wiki would work.  
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www.entertainmentearth.com

For those of you who are die-hard Big Bang Theory fanatics, they do have their own Wiki: http://wiki.the-big-bang-theory.com/index.php/Main_Page.