Week 8 - Exploring Wikis

Hello Everyone,

This week we got to look at Wikis which are another Web 2.0 technology like blogs.  A Wiki is a website that anyone can edit easily using a web browser.  When I think of a wiki, I think of Wikipedia which is a collaborative web-based encyclopedia compiled, edited, and updated by millions of people.

The most interesting part about learning about Wikis this week was the discussion of them in education.  Growing up, we were told never to use Wikipedia for definitions because they were unreliable.  I remember fooling around with some pages on Wikipedia when I was younger so hopefully I can be forgiven for that!  However, Wikis are a great tool for teachers and students that can help build knowledge.  Since Wikis are public, it is an incentive for the individual to do things the right way.  I've never seen the value of using Wikis but after this week, I can see that they are more useful than a blog.  Blogs are used to express opinions and comments allow for responses but Wikis have a more open structure and allow individuals to add to what has been written or change it.  Wikipedia has had a major impact on learning.  It is always looked at as an easy way for students to plagiarize but students used to copy from books before.  Wikis allow for speed and convenience.

Wikis have the ability to support learning by enabling and promoting group collaboration.  For example a student makes a page that has the information that he/she knows.  A classmate can then go to the page and add to the page with more information and add more detail.  Through the video Wikis in Plain English, it describes a way that Wikis could be used when planning a camping trip.  I could see myself using this tool for planning an event and collaborating with other people.  It simplifies the way and allows people to add to a document instead of sending numberous emails without keeping track of what needs to be done.

In addition, this week we looked at mind-mapping tools to show the important things that create digital rights and responsibilities.  As a digital user, it is important to understand the rights and responsibilities that are at play.  The ones that I think are most important are respect, properly citing sources, and reporting cyberbullying.  There are a few other aspects as seen in the mind map that I created.



As for my Feedly this week, I'm continuing with the interesting promotions by minor professional hockey teams.  The Southern Professional Hockey League's Columbus Cottonmouths held a social media night to try to engage fans and sell more tickets.  What made it so unique? The team wore selfie jerseys that had pictures of fans on them.  They took the pictures that fans submitted with the #snakeselfie from Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook and put them on the jerseys.  Take a look for yourself!

I think that this is really creative and uses the technology that every fan uses daily allows for more interaction between the team and fans.  For more pictures and the article: Columbus Cottonmouths Selfie Jersey Promotion.

Hope you enjoyed my thoughts on this weeks material!

-Mark