KeithBurnett

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2023-04-16: Amazing Meatball is still here. The Wiki got retired when we started using Moodle around 2010
2006-02-16: Students starting to add to existing pages in the trial wiki. Things looking up.
2005-12-13: A classroom activity (see below) introduced wiki use for page editing and the idea of including a 'category' like word on each of a set of related pages to build an index. The activity did not generate enough pages to illustrate auto-linking.
2005-12-09: Blogs proliferating among colleagues to the extent that they are now being picked up thru' classroom observation by internal quality assurance staff! I showed some staff how my Alpha Smart A3000 can be used to capture text in meetings...
2005-12-02: student has found the blog and created a wikiname ahead of time. Had to explain how to set a preference name so that the proxy server of the service provider is not on the pages she edits...
2005-11-30: ran a session for training teachers in using ILT. Most popular activity was creating a blog.

Who is this geezer?

I work as a Maths teacher in a Further Education college in the UK - that is a Community College in American.

If you google my name, I am not the professor of theoretical physics, and I am not a wildlife photographer :-) Adding 'maths resources' to the search narrows the range. You will get a good idea of the company I keep on the Web from such a search.

I'm interested in wiki like systems for encouraging students to write collectively - and to focus on documents rather than who said what. A lot of students use the wikipedia and are very surprised when they realise that the pages can be changed by anyone. I will probably be using wikis in protected systems like Moodle, but I have put up a public usemod wiki for students to try out for a preliminary activity.

Teaching is a concrete activity with short term time bound goals, so here is what I'm trying: Each Student is given a topic to research and post a page on. There will then be a general finding of links between topics and the adding of TopicSearch pages a la Leuf and Cunningham. Finally, some collective error checking, possible refactoring and tweaking will be encouraged before the issue of the final assignment concludes the 'research' phase. We will see how it goes.

I made a trivial modification of the UseModWiki perl code to apply a No Index metatag to each page in the public wiki I'm using for this trial activity - see WikiSpamWorkshop for the various techniques.

MeatBall pages of interest...

WikiAsFloor - students can have a public space to store links, words, explanations and so on

FormsOfCollaboration - What forms would suit an educational outcome? Given assessment processes here in the UK, the wiki would probably be for research findings and rough notes.

Introductory Activity

Experience has suggested that I have to introduce any use of Web applications to students in a face to face session - these students are just getting used to using computer applications together to produce complex documents. I walk through a task using a projector, and then students work at individual computers. The task below took about 45 minutes of a 3 hour session and introduced some useful aspects of wikis. Opinion:Those who came across wikis on the Web and grokked them straight away must remember that 'mainstreaming' wikis will need deliberate class based activities like this.

Before lesson
- Set up wiki words relating to a topic in the wiki on a wiki page specifically for this activity.
- Added some questions or a challenge about each wiki word at the top of the appropriate page, signed by me using my wiki name, with a back link to the wiki name for the activity page.
- Flashcards produced in PowerPoint and printed as slips for each keyword
In lesson
- Students invited to pick a card on entering the lesson (these are mature people but like a bit of silliness when arriving in class after a day's work)
- Demonstrate use of Wiki by completing the whole process on the projected web page
- Students invited into wiki (linked from the class blog) and given time to find the right page
- Students research material about the word - post summarised information and reference links back onto page - save changes - describe in edit summary
- Plenary: I demonstrate the 'topic search' feature of the title link by clicking on the title of the activity page

Review: some useful summaries - these level 3 students are still getting used to writing and prefer to write in Word at home. The 'topic search' (see The Wiki Way) went down well as some students grokked the self linking nature of the wiki. No surprise to find that conventions such as setting a preference name and adding an edit summary not always adhered to (My own experience here reflects that!)

Next step: Encourage addition to pages over the next few weeks. Holiday period is a non-starter.

Welcome rituals

Welcome to MB, Keith! Good to hear a bit about you. Looking forward to hearing how your experiment goes. -- ChrisPurcell

Welcome, Keith.

I'm intrigued that you are both a photographer and are interested in wikis because one of my assumptions is that "A picture is worth (more than) a thousand words." Now, I've watched the explosion of images due to digital photography at sites like FlickR and I know that this statement is not always true. But there are some instances in which it is dramatically evident. Personally, I am experimenting with the inclusion of images within wikis. Ideally, I hope to be able to have the ability to use the best of both, in combination. Has your past wotk with either of these art forms allowed you to form any opinions you might be prepared to share? -- HansWobbe

To HansWobbe - I am not a photographer although I take pictures. My interest in Wikis is recent, so I'm no expert there either.

A colleague at the college where I work would like a wiki-blog-quiz generator rolled into one, with drag and drop file upload. In teaching we need tools that can be used quickly and easily by people who are very busy. A teacher normally teaches for 24 hours per week. This leaves about 12 hours per week for all preparation, assesment and development activities within the contracted time. Obviously, most do plenty of work outside that time. I think a wiki - being so immediate - might help teachers provide useful homework activities quickly.

Today, I ran a training session for newer teachers in Information Learning Technology, the UK buzz word for using e-learning to support classroom work. The activity that got the group going most was setting up a simple blog on blogger. I'll wean them onto wikis sooner or later...

-KeithBurnett

PS I like your idea of microBlogs so much, I shall steal it.

Thanks for the clarification regarding 'photography. My erroroneous assumption came from scanning too quickly since I was a bit rushed. (Know the feeling, in fact my biggest worry about using wikis with students is the thundering amounts of text they accumulate -KeithBurnett) Enjoy the microBlog idea, but there's no need for thanks (at least not to me) since its something that I also 'absorbed' while passing through cyberspace. Besides, I believe its nice to help others as a partial repayment to the many folks that have helped me. -- HansWobbe.

Sorry to come across as a complete nag, but you might want to have a quick read of DigestedSummary: we're not like most other wikis in the way we use our summary field. This is an interesting page to summarize, as it's had a lot of variety recently, but I've had a crack at it. What d'you think? -- ChrisPurcell

I have now read the DigestedSummary page, and thanks for your patience in explaining the way Meatball works. I'm learning about wiki community systems here by experience - and hope not to take too much more time along the way. -KeithBurnett

Meatball editing conventions learned to date (or at least the ones I have managed to break :-)

Create a WikiName page with your real name
Add the CategoryHomePage wiki word to your page so that wiki 'knows' your page is a personal one
Sign in with your WikiName using 'preferences' when you want to edit a page so people know who is editing what
On pages that are changing daily, update the DigestedSummary for the page so that people who use recent changes a lot can see a summary of what the page is about.
Don't delete older bits of the DigestedSummary as people who have been away from the wiki for some time can still use the summary to understand the page

My version for student use of a usemod based wiki might look like this (we are talking 30 members or so)

Reading the wiki

Visit Recent Changes to see what has changed and who changed it - this is where the action is!
Use the search box and browse the links if you are after information and resources
If you find mistakes or think you could re-write something in a clearer way, go ahead and edit the page
If you have material to add, try to find a suitable page to add your material to

Editing the wiki

Create a WikiName - this is both your home page on the wiki and a way for other people to contact you
Add the WikiName word to your page - then it is easy to make a list of home pages
Before you start editing, visit the preferences page and sign in with your WikiName so people know who is editing what.
Make your edits, perhaps asking questions using the Answer Me wiki word, perhaps signing comments with your WikiName
Add an edit summary when you edit a page so others can see what has changed in Recent Changes
Use the Preview function to catch typos and to see how your text will look

You may be interested to know that our UseMod script is currently undergoing modifications. DigestedSummary and EditCategories were recent updates, as was the addition of AsynchronousAutorefresh. The next step is a UserFreeServer, with preferences next to where they are used rather than clustered on a Preferences page. I would welcome opinions on any of these, whether based on your personal preferences or on your future experiences of introducing students to a wiki.

Re: reading the wiki. It's important to add other systems for finding information as a wiki grows: RecentChanges is a community mechanism, not a point of entry for the wiki. You could take a look at the IndexingSchemes we've gathered for more about this. -- ChrisPurcell

Thanks for these observations. I shall consider the wording over the holiday - but please remember this wiki trial is with about 30 students in two groups - a huge community superstructure might not be needed. The 'recent changes' hint was designed to appeal to the pragmatist-activist students ('what is happening now - what do I need to do?'). The search/browse hint was aimed at the 'theorist/reflector' constituency ('I want some notes and some background'). How much 'structure' do people find needed with small wiki communities? -KeithBurnett

Hi Keith,

The reason my personal wiki hollenback.net is locked down is spam. My site starting attracting so much spam a year ago that I had no choice but to lock it down. The other problem is that the wiki software I use (phpwiki) has really become decrepit. There isn't anyone really developing it any more.

The problem of spam could be addressed by forcing users to reigster, going through CATCHAs, etc. Unfortunately all of this is pretty broken in phpwiki as it stands. I do have some hope of moving to pmwiki at some point instead. The problem is I then have to translate some 700 pages in the current wiki.

A major problem with wikis today is that each uses a different markup language. if some standard could be agreed upon I believe wikis would be much more powerful and useful - for example you could migrate your content between wikis at will

--PhilHollenback

Thanks for reply - and I will bear in mind need for protection when converting my web site to wiki later this year... -KeithBurnett

Keith, I'm doing a fair amount of research on the use of wikis in the classroom. I'm writing a report about one (bad) experience right now. See my recent diary entries about ActivityGraph?ing. In the new year, I'll summarize what happened and maybe we can share experiences? -- SunirShah

Sure - but remember I'm working with small numbers of students well below University level, some of whom have limited experience with online tools of any kind. The ActivityGraph? system looks well neat. -KeithBurnett