Wiki-based learning in the classroom
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Discussion points
I'm finding it hard to break things up my ideas into all the subheadings. For example, in talking about one of my class wiki assignments, elements of collaborative writing, community building, peer-to-peer interaction, ... all come up. I think it makes the most sense to tell the whole story at one time.
Introduction
A wiki is a type of website that provides a framework for users to interactively and collaboratively build a database of interrelated information quickly and easily. Wikipedia, currently featuring more that two million articles in English alone, is the most well known wiki, but wikis can also be targeted to smaller audiences, such as an engineering class. We will discuss our use of wikis in teaching a capstone senior design course and graduate courses in design optimization and small scale heat transfer. In all three courses, a wiki provides (i) logistical benefits to the instructor compared to a traditional webpage, and (ii) an interactive and collaborative online-environment in which students can drive their own learning experience. In all three courses, the wiki is designed to grow in subsequent offerings, providing a basis and standard for future students. In addition to discussing the benefits of course wikis to both instructors and students, we will also describe the process of setting up and maintaining a wiki on a web server.
Background on class wikis
Alan will work on this section
Wiki software
Most wiki software is open source code and numerous wiki engines are freely available. The most popular one is MediaWiki, the same program used for Wikipedia. MediaWiki is written in the hypertext scripting language PHP, incorporating database management system. We choose and also recommend using MediaWiki to setup a classroom wiki for several reasons. First, it has large-scale database capability and high operation reliability. Second, the installation and maintenance processes are simple and friendly. Third, MediaWiki has its own wiki offering users comprehensive instructions about installing, maintaining, and updating MeidaWiki. Fourth, MediaWiki offers integrated math-formula display function similar to the LaTeX math syntax. This important feature, especially for scientific and engineering courses, provides a convenient protocol to display mathematical symbols and formulations on a wiki page.
Linux is recommended for the operating system platform of a wiki not only because it is open source and has strong security features. Prior to installing the main wiki program, the PHP interpreter, HTTP server (e.g. Apache web server), and database server (e.g. MySQL) should be installed first. The detailed installation procedures can be found in the corresponding websites.
A well-designed wiki program should be easy to maintain by the administrator. From our experiences, the maintenance responsibilities for a class wiki include: 1) user account management, 2) wiki page management, 3) database and file backups, 4) system updating and 5) security issue handing. For management, MediaWiki provides a well-designed web interface for the wiki administration. Backups and updates can be done by following the procedures from the MediaWiki website. Security issues need an additional tool. A plug-in program reCAPTCHA developed by Carnegie Mellon University is strongly recommended. reCAPTCHA can effectively block maliciously automatic registrations and spam.
Course management
Information dissemination
For the course instructor, the wiki provides a web environment in which to disseminate information about the class. Like a regular website, the course schedule, homework assignments, and important documents can be made available. The wiki interface provides a convenient way to update and modify information, as the editing can be done directly online.
From the student perspective, information dissemination from the instructor through the wiki is the same as it would be on a regular webpage. The course syllabus, announcements, and homework assignments can all be made available. The advantage of the wiki in this regard is on the side of the instructor. The wiki environment provides an easy way to quickly and directly update existing pages with no need for external software. The wiki can be updated from any computer with internet access and has many convenient built-in features (e.g., tables).
Comment about security - can the list of people who can edit a particular page be controlled?
Course notes
Course notes, particularly if they are prepared using LaTeX, can readily be placed on the wiki. These pages can then be made open to students, where they can make changes and initiate discussion of points that are not clear to them. (There's a CMU CS prof who does this - I think I have a newspaper article about it). In this way, the instructor can get immediate feedback from students after they have had time to digest material (such interaction during class is not always effective), helping them to plan out future lectures. Students will also be able to catch small errors (spelling, symbols, math). The notes will be in a dynamic state throughout the semester.
Reward students for their work on the wiki.
Solicitation of student input
the “talk” feature of the wiki can be used to solicit student questions and feedback.
Email alerts
Students may also subscribe to receive email alerts and/or RSS feeds to monitor updates and changes to course material.
Student interaction
The active experience that a wiki offers students is its strongest feature.
Collaborative writing
In the capstone senior design course students used the wiki in teams to collaboratively write design project reports, including pictures and videos to document use and functionality.
McGaughey's SSHT class had ten graduate students. In the first lecture they were broken into three groups and asked to write down what they knew about conduction, convection, or radiation on the board. After 5 minutes, the groups rotated and were asked to edit what another group had written. We then had a class discussion on how what they had done was like how a wiki page operates.
The first wiki assignment, presented on the wiki, was as follows:
Task 1: First Page Due: March 27, 2007, Value: 10 points
In the first class we discussed the concepts of
1. Conduction
2. Convection
3. Radiation
4. Solid
5. Liquid
6. Gas
7. Vapor
8. Phonon
9. Photon
10. Fluid Particle
McGaughey: Electron
There are ten terms and ten students in the class. You have a number assigned to you in class. You are responsible for making a wiki page on that topic by the due date (start by clicking on the link above). Add your name to the number above, as I have done for electron. Include introductory information using what we discussed in class, things you learned in other classes, reference books, the internet, etc. Be sure to reference all your sources. The content should be appropriate for an undergraduate mechanical engineering student with some exposure to heat transfer, thermodynamics, and fluid mechanics. Try to include a few equations, some figures, etc. and make links to the other NTPwiki pages. Your grade will be based on both the content and visual appearance of the wiki page.
Using the history feature on the wiki, it is possible to track the creation of each page. In initially constructing their pages, students made between two and 22 modifications (note that a change is noted every time you save the page, if it is every minute or every hour). McGaughey then read all the pages and left comments for improvements. The students returned to their page and addressed these points.
The second wiki assignment was as follows:
Task 2: Page Editing Due: April 5, 2007, Value: 10 points
Revise/modify/add to the wiki page corresponding to the second number given to you in class. Include some more advanced information. Make links around words/terms that you feel deserve their own page. Add figures. You should consult with the original author. The final grade for each wiki page will given to both people who worked on it. Also feel free to look at the other pages and offer suggestions on what should be included. McGaughey has already done this, and left comments on the pages.
All students edited a second page. The majority of students, even though it was not required, worked on their original page after it had been edited. A number of students edited pages that they were not assigned to. McGaughey was very pleased with how these two exercises turned out. The quality of the wiki pages was very good, and clearly a result of the collaborative writing aspect of their development. There was a also a clear sense of an evolving class identity. The collaborative aspect of the second wiki assignment brought students together both online and isn the classroom. The students were often discussing their pages before and after class.
Students had a third wiki assignment where they were allowed to choose the topic for a new wiki page. They were encourage to make links with all the other pages.
Peer-to-peer interaction
Students can be asked to post comments critiquing the work of other teams and can observe the work of other teams to benchmark and build ideas.
Student-instructor interaction
Monitoring student progress
Instructors can monitor student progress in real time, foresee potential problems in time to offer corrections, and have access to a full history of team member contributions to support individualized feedback and grading of team projects.
Contribution history
Community-building
In the graduate heat transfer course, students developed their own wiki pages on the course fundamentals, and then worked with other students to improve both their initial pages and those of others.
This collaborative activity developed community within the class, and provided a series of wiki pages that can be used in subsequent teachings of the course at a level suitable to the students. In the graduate course on optimization and product development, students engaged in independent research on a topic related to the course but beyond what was covered in class, writing a wiki page as a report on the topic and presenting it to the class.
Information growth, consolidation and sharing
Summary and conclusions
Before being converted to its current format, this paper was initially written on Michalek's wiki.
Acknowledgements
We thank Norman Shiau and John Thomas for their work in setting up our wiki servers.
