From: David R. N. <d.r...@qu...> - 2002-12-27 17:17:12
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I'm intending to use Tikiwiki with a class of 50 students here in Queen's University Belfast. Since there isn't a tikiwiki-user list (like Midgard has), I've joined the devel list. After all, if there is something I really need for use in my teaching, I'll probably have to program it myself. In this message I'll introduce myself and explain how I want to apply Tikiwiki. In the next one I'll send some technical comments on performance profiling. I am a lecturer in Information Systems in the Queen's University Belfast School of Management (see my personal home page URL at the bottom). One of the modules I teach is Information Technology and Society (IT and Society). See http://www.qub.ac.uk/mgt/itsoc/. I get my students to study different controversies in IT and Society. They discuss these topics both face-to-face and online. 8 years ago, when I started the module, they were using computer conferencing. I found that there was significantly more critical thinking in their online discussions than in the face-to-face onces (see the papers listed at http://www.qub.ac.uk/mgt/papers/abstract.html). Over the years I've developed a system in which students, for each topic: 1. Find and review one or two different articles on the topic, and post their review online. 2. Meet for a face-to-face discussion in which they compare the articles written by people from different perspectives (e.g. managers and workers viewpoints on surveillance). 3. Write up, on-line, a summary of the discussion and its outcomes for revision. I've found that I can get students to do 1 and 2, and even some online discussion using computer conferencing systems like Usenet and Ultimate BB. But they don't make comments on the summaries, let alone edit them. That's why I am interested in wikiwiki webs. That may be a way to get groups of students to collectively edit their own notes, and even produce their own text book from them. Tikiwiki looks like it has a lot of the facilities they would need to help then write (not just read) on the WWW. They could post their reviews to the news article system (so-called CMS), then discuss them in comments or in a forum. After some discussion, a pair of rapporteurs can draft an initial Wikiwiki web on the topic, which the others can then edit. In addition, the students can use Tikiwiki to help in their small group projects. My students, in groups of 3, research an issue in IT and Society and then write a report on it. For 6 years I have refused to accept paper. Their reports are on a web site. Each group could have its own file and image galleries for sharing documents. Although we already have BSCW installed here for that (see http://bscw.gmd.de/) it is sufficiently hard to learn to use that most students don't use it. They are more likely to use an extra facility in a program they are using anyway for their seminars. It would be nice if the file galleries had version control, like the the Wiki pages do, as students are always deleting the file the suddenly realised they need. Furthermore, each student can use a Tikiwiki blog to publish their own personal learning log on what they are doing in the project, and their personal reflections on it. At present they just e-mail those to me, but a published blog (readable only by other students on the module) might encourage them to say and think a bit more. Finally, the category system is flexible enough to allow us to classify the articles and wiki pages according to Lorna Johnston's wheel (see http://www.qub.ac.uk/mgt/itsoc/isee/lornring.html). She tape-recorded and analysed IT and Society seminars. At the end she came up with a way of classifying parts of the discussions, according to the dimension of evidence being considered (legal, environmental, ...), the perspective of the author, and the problem-solving approaches being used at the time in the discussion. If I can get students to classify each post in all 3 ways, then they could use the category system to pull together all the reviews of articles say, of the community perspective on the economics of the digital divide. Howver, the single, drop-down list of categories found in the article editor isn't a good interface for getting someone to classify an article in 3 ways at once. It would be better of the hierarchy of the category browser could be reflected in the editor. Of the rest of Tikiwiki, the only bits I would definitely not use are the polls or the quizzes. Neither are designed in a way that makes them useful for serious education or serious social surveys. The polls only let you choose one option from a list. Here in Northern Ireland, we can predict the first choices even before we take a poll. 60% (the protestants) will vote one way, 40% (the catholics) will vote another way. What you cannot find out from a single choice poll is what people will settle for if they cannot get their first choice. But to do that, you need to get people to rank half a dozen or more options, in a preferendum (http://www.qub.ac.uk/mgt/papers/prefer/). So we use more sophisticated polling systems, like the one at http://www.sztaki.hu/services/voting/ As for the quiz system, it cannot even be used for school tests, because it is tied to the type of scoring system used in magazines. -- Dr. David R. Newman, Queen's University Belfast, School of Management and Economics, Belfast BT7 1NN, Northern Ireland (UK) Tel. (direct) +44 (0)28 9027 3643 (office) +44 (0)28 9033 5011 FAX: +44 (0)28 9033 5156 mailto:d.r...@qu... http://www.qub.ac.uk/mgt/staff/dave/ |