Wikis+as+scholarly+sources+study

When researching most recent scholarly contributions in relation to wikis as classroom tools, relevant to our study of wikis as documentation, this discusses the experiences, opinions and knowledge gained when students collaborated on a wiki for the purposes of a book review.
 * WRITING WITH WIKIS: A CAUTIONARY TALE OF TECHNOLOGY IN THE CLASSROOM ||
 * Author: |||||||||| [|Allwardt] [|,] [|Debra] [|E]  ||
 * Journal: |||||||||| Journal of social work education ||
 * ISSN: || 1043-7797 || Date: |||||| 10/01/2011 ||
 * Volume: || 47 || Issue: || 3 || Page: || 597-605 ||

It highlights much of the new-user skepticism and issues raised in our week 5 debate, yet focuses more on the reliability of wikis as collaborative educational tools.The study discusses the pros and cons of employing wikis in such a capacity. The author, also an assistant professor in the Department of Social Work at Western Illinois University, cites scholarly works advocating wikis as a positive medium for student coordination and instructor evaluation:

"Wikis eliminate or mitigate negative group work issues such as coordinating group logistics and organizing multiple copies or editions of a manuscript (Sidell, 2007). The history function of many wikis enables instructors to see the writing process and evaluate the contributions of each user (Morgan & Smith, 2008). Thus, students can be graded based on actual contributions, thereby reducing students’ fear of being grouped with so-called slackers, and the instructor’s fear that one student will dominate the group process," (Allwardt, 598.)

Moreover, the application of a wiki allows for equal opportunity employment - students/users all have the same ability to contribute, given reliable web access. But this article digs deeper than the theoretic implications of using wikis and explores actual student/teacher application feeback.

Reading on, the author notes the overwhelming ill-acceptance of the wiki application by its 16 students (20-23 year-old females):

"Despite constant encouragement and reminders by the instructor, the majority of students did not use the wiki until a few days before the assignment deadline.... In addition, students did not explore the site. When group members posted information on pages other than the main writing page, those were ignored. The students did not comment on contributions made by other group members," (Allwardt, 600.)

Embracing wikis as beneficial higher-education collaborative tools remains a current institutional challenge. Technology can be intimidating as learned early on in the week 1 assignment. Innovative approaches to coursework, such as a wiki about wikis,opens the door for all of the above. It's a collaborative outlook and positive approach to this wiki project that will inevitably decide its fate.

This short video explains how one teacher users Wikis in her classroom and what her students noted about them: media type="youtube" key="1pR5yogCmkA" height="315" width="420"

The article **Wikipedia Teams Up With Academia ** by Sarah Gonzalez (located in the Studying Wikis for Documentation Zotero library) offers another take on wikis in the classroom. Listen to the NPR audio clip for insight on using wikis to develop an online public policy encyclopedia. Instead of getting caught up in the citation debate, Gonzales interviews students and educators teaming up to populate Wikipedia with reliable policy content. media type="file" key="20101102_atc_07.mp3" width="240" height="20"  [3 min 53 sec] November 2, 2010