Possible Pitfalls

Include

  • loss of control — you are handing a considerable amount of control over to the students. When you let them edit your pages, you give them a considerable amount of power.
  • Students may have trouble mastering the technology of the wiki, or not be clear as to what your expectations are, particularly if your institution does not have a large number of courses using wikis. They may not be used to working on them.
  • At times you will need to compel students to do things, otherwise just a few will do everything. When you compel students to do things, Wiki Nature goes away and the wiki gets filled with "rubbish" (in the words of Richard Buckland).
  • Every so often a student will try to rename a page, orphan that page, and then freak out that all of their work has disappeared. This will most likely happen several times during the run of each course. Their work has not disappeared, they just need to find it and restore the link.

To Avoid Trouble

  • According to Buckland, and my own observations, your best bet to get good participation without having the wiki fill up with junk is to have a mix of required material, as well as areas that are not for grade. For his classes, Buckland assigns each student a week wherein they must take 'raw notes' for a grade, but any student can turn those raw notes into pretty notes for use by the class. The pretty notes are not graded (see Collaborative Lecture Notes).
  • You will need to spend some time at the very start of your course introducing students to the wiki and walking them through how they are used in general and how they will specifically be used in your course.
  • Provide the students with examples right away of work that is stellar. Show them what works well and why it works. They will need a place to start, as many may not have a point of reference for this type of class work.
  • Students need to use their real names as wiki names. Anonymity leads to flaming vandals.
  • Request that all work be done on the wiki so you can monitor it as it is happening. (Also, if students compose on word and then cpoy and paste to the wiki, or try to upload it as a file, it gets to be a mess. It doesn't format well)
  • Never criticize a student's contribution to the wiki. It takes a certain amount of courage to have your work out there in the public sphere — point that out and thank them for doing it. If they need to improve, then frame it that way. "This was great, now think about adding this or why not try this as well …"
  • When it comes to students orphaning their pages, this is difficult to avoid. You can talk about it before hand, but they will do it anyway. Just be ready to show them how to find orphaned pages on your particular platform. There are some hints as to how to do that here.

Much of this content is a result of my own observations as both a student in classes using wikis and as a teacher of classes using wikis, as well as adapted from Richard Buckland. It is important to note that although terrible things could possibly happen when you give students this much control, they never do. Students take ownership of their material and rise to the occasion. They tend to police themselves.

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