Wikis & Emerging Web 2.0 E-Learning Communities, Part 3

This is Part 3 of my notes from the webinar Wikis & Emerging Web 2.0 E-Learning Communities. My notes are in all caps.

Jeff Brainard, Socialtext Director of Marketing

What to look for in a wiki

  • easy to use
  • create and find content
  • integrate with other technology (RSS, multimedia, etc.)
  • other ways to view information (blogs, etc.) I’M NOT SURE ABOUT THIS—MAYBE WHEN I SEE IT I’LL UNDERSTAND MORE. WIKIS AND BLOGS SERVE DIFFERENT PURPOSES THOUGH

Features of Socialtext IT’S THE DIRECTOR OF MARKETING, SO I SUPPOSE I SHOULDN’T BE SURPRISED BY THE COMMERCIAL…I DIDN’T TAKE MANY NOTES FOR THIS PART

  • Granular permission control
  • Advanced search & tagging

Places to use wikis

  • Intranet
    • Knowledge Base
    • Group Collaboration
    • Manage projects & processes
    • THIS IS WHAT WE USE IT FOR—DOCUMENTING SOPs
  • Extranet
  • Internet
    • Public knowledge bases
    • Self-service portals
    • Social communities
    • Mobility

Project Management Scenario

  • Project summary page
  • Team member pages
  • Track progress
  • Keep notes

Knowledge Wiki

  • Information—like for a help desk THIS IS WHAT MY HUSBAND NEEDS WITH HIS TEAM. THEIR HELP DESK DOCUMENTATION IS NEVER UP TO DATE.

Showed integration within another portal (could be integrated within Bb or other LMS)

Reduce email overload

Instead of lots of emails back and forth, do discussions on the wiki

Everyone always has the current version because it’s on the wiki

Dynamic Intranet

Get experts to put info on the wiki instead of everyone always emailing & asking the expert

Glossary for internal jargon & acronyms

Wiki widgets to include other media in the wiki

Socialtext has mobile and offline access

Q&A:  (All three presenters answering questions, not sure who said what)

https://www.socialtext.net/medialiteracy

Ask critical questions about sources

Not just wikipedia, but all sources

 

Socialtext is a platform for large applications: enterprise-wise, campus-wide, etc.

Use open source if you can manage it yourself; go commercial if you want to have someone else host and manage it

 

Controversial topics

  • You can track who changed what
  • People can delete what they don’t agree with
  • Getting to a NPOV can be pretty nasty behind the scenes
  • Really controversial issues are better on a blog or forum where all comments are preserved

Q: Correlation between wikis and grades or retention?

A: Peer evaluation may have some correlation to improved grades (anecdotal, not formal research

 

Q: How do you make people comfortable with the technology?

A: One answered that they are doing “underground resistance” by just giving it to the students and letting them take it with them elsewhere

Requires faculty to change their understanding about what it means to teach: do faculty have to give all information, or is it still teaching when faculty provide means to find information?

Need to experiment

Read Part 1 and Part 2 of my notes.

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