It is hard to work in a school library without believing in the power of constructivist learning. Every day teacher-librarians facilitate the process of articulating research questions, locating resources, organizing information from a variety of sources, and synthesizing that information to create new understandings. Some of the most exciting research happens when students collaborate to pool their research and analyze their data, forming a kind of understanding that would be difficult for an individual student to achieve.
The Read/Write Web, also called Web 2.0, offers powerful tools to aid in this kind of collaborative process. Applications such as blogs and wikis allow users to add content to a web page on the fly, generally with little or no knowledge of HTML coding required. And although blogs have gained some popularity and use in schools, the potential for wikis as an educational tool remains largely untapped. While the reasons for this are open to question, it is clear that it is not because students are uncomfortable with these new technologies. In fact, about half of all teens in the United States create some kind of content for the Internet. These activities include creating web pages, blogs, and wikis, as well as remixing content found online into something new (Lenhart & Madden, 2005).
In the Image of Wikipedia
Many of the suggestions for using wikis are imitations of the general concept of Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, an organic, loosely structured process to produce encyclopedia-type content. NeighborhoodWiki, for example, features elementary students' encyclopedia entries on hundreds of topics, ranging from alligators to zxcvbnm,./ (the bottom row of the keyboard). Will Richardson (2006) suggested that teachers and students collaborate to create wiki textbooks for individual courses and that each year new classes might add to or edit content. Westwood Schools, in Camilla, GA, maintains a wiki that includes collections of student work, class blogs, student-created study guides, and spaces for students to post pages of interest to other students (Jakes, 2006).
In addition to allowing users to add and edit content, wikis also allow users to weigh in with commentary. Many wiki applications feature a back page, usually labeled Discussion, which can be used for reflection and feedback. On Wikipedia, users often use this space to post explanations of edits they have made, to evaluate content, or to disagree with other contributors. This feature is being put to good use by teachers who create wikis for their writing courses. Borja (2006) cited Paul Allison's High School Online Collaborative Writing Wiki as an example, on which students used the "Discussion" page to create modern versions of scenes from Macbeth, including 20 versions of the opening witch scene.
Many supporters of wikis in education suggest that there is an inherent underlying philosophy that accompanies use of the tool. Richardson (2006) claimed that "early implementations of wikis in educational settings have shown that the more autonomy teachers give to students in terms of negotiating the scope and quality of the content they are creating, the better" (p. 65). Heather James (2004) described her "brilliant wiki failure," in part, the result of assuming too much control. "To really use a wiki," James said, "the participants need to be in control of the content--you have to give it over fully." And Brian Lamb (2004) asserted that wikis are most effective when "students can assert meaningful autonomy over the process. It is not that authority cannot be imposed on a wiki, but doing so undermines the effectiveness of the tool" (p. 45).
Wikis and Information Literacy
Although it is hard to argue with the goal of independent, self-directed learning, this is often more an ideal to strive toward than it is a reality. In fact, there is evidence that careful structuring and scaffolding of concepts and skills have led to some successful wiki collaborations. Moreover, many of the considerations in effectively setting up a learning wiki are related to the information literacy skills that fall within the teacher-librarian's expertise. For example, in a study of undergraduate engineering students' use of a wiki for a design project, Nicol, Littlejohn, and Grierson (2005) noted that the organization and structure of information and resources affected team sharing and the learning of design principals. In one of two case studies that this team completed, the authors concluded that requiring teams to make their knowledge structures transparent helped teams solidify their ideas about how their ideas were inter-related. The authors also suggested that requiring students to create concept maps of how their resources related to their central design concepts would have deepened students' application of those resources. In debriefing their project, one student stated that it would have been beneficial if they had been required to use the wiki to rank the value of each source that they uploaded to the shared space. Nicol and colleagues (2005) last suggested that some information literacy skills do not come naturally to students and that building in mechanisms to the wiki to assist students through their problem solving is an important role for the instructor.
Phillipson and Hamilton (2004) reflected on a similar issue in relation to their Romantic Audience Project, a class wiki at Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME, exploring the Romantic poets. In this open-ended project, students analyzed and responded to poetry through annotating the original poems. Words and phrases were linked to pages of explication and reaction; images related to poems were uploaded; poems on similar themes were interlinked; and biographical information was created about influential authors. In spite of students' enthusiasm, there were difficulties. "Wikis lead to dispersion," the authors stated. "It is easy to click around and wander off into paths that feel tangential or idiosyncratic. To a point, such an environment can feel liberating.… But disorientation is quickly frustrating, especially in a pedagogical setting."
Phillipson and Hamilton chose a wiki software with navigation features that they thought would help their students. They took an active role in deciding which pages to highlight on the navigation bar, and they barred students from deleting each other's posts. Once again, these instructors intervened in the operation of the wiki in response to their students' information literacy skill levels.
Engstrom and Jewett's middle school wiki project (2005), in which students investigated the long-term consequences of six Missouri River dams, yielded similar conclusions in terms of the need to build in information literacy skills. Teachers realized on reflection that they needed to model and facilitate the exchange of ideas and that students needed some explicit instruction in the inquiry process to help them provide meaningful interactions with each other and the data they were uncovering.
As a matter of pedagogy, Richardson (2006), James (2004), and Lamb (2004) are correct to push for using wikis in the least restrictive environment, giving over control of content and process to students. But providing students with support, structure, and instruction when they lack the skills to assume complete control in no way undermines the effectiveness of the wiki as a tool. Richardson wrote that, in fact, the use of the wiki is as much about collaborative skills as it is about the production of content:
The collaborative environment that wikis facilitate can teach students much about how to work with others, how to create community, and how to operate in a world where the creation of knowledge and information is increasingly becoming a group effort. (p. 74)
Let us take a closer look at five features of wikis that can make them an effective tool in facilitating such collaborative efforts, including examples from my partnerships with classroom teachers.
Feature 1: Ease of use. Contributors simply go to a wiki site and add a new entry or edit an existing one following simple directions. Many wiki sites provide a "what you see is what you get" (WNYSIWYG) editing interface with options similar to those seen in a basic word-processing application, such as Microsoft Word. Users click on "Edit," and add or change content, then click on "Save This Page." That is all there is to it. Instant publishing.
Example. At the beginning of the school year, sophomore world studies students come to the library for a minilesson on determining the authority of a web site. Through discussion facilitated by the teacher-librarian and classroom teacher, students generate a set of criteria that they will use to evaluate authority. Working in groups of three, students explore a single site and use the criteria to decide if the site is authoritative. Students record their answers on a wiki page that includes a link to the site. Because students have no difficulty learning to use the wiki after a 1-minute demonstration, they are able to record their answers and share with the whole group right away (Figure 1).
Feature 2: Spaces for students to create products individually, in small groups, and as a whale group. Any wiki can be designed to contain separate work spaces for individual, small group, and large group products. The digital environment creates an easy means for students to move from one space to the next, taking notes, analyzing, and synthesizing information along the way.
Example. Students in a remedial science class are exploring the similarities and differences between human beings and other primates. Each student locates information on a single species using links off his or her own page provided by the teacher-librarian (Figure 2). The student records answers on that page. Then, a group leader copies all group members' work into a matrix. Together, the group members answer the question, "Based on the data here, what does it mean to be human?" (Figure 3).
Each group shares its data and answers with the class, comparing and refining answers. In a short period, students are able to collect, organize, and analyze a large amount of data to produce original conclusions and create authentic understanding.
Feature 3: Ability to create a nonlinear document structure through hyperlinks. Hyperlinking allows for the creation of assignments whose steps need not be followed in a single order, offering flexibility and choice to students while maintaining clear paths to follow. Again, neither students nor instructors need to know any HTML coding to do this.
Example. Students move easily through all the information and work spaces of the primates wiki mentioned in Feature 2.
Feature 4: A built-in mechanism for reflection and metacognition. As mentioned earlier, many wikis offer an option called "Discussion"--some wiki sites call it "Comments"--on which students can engage in conversation about the entry, explaining why they made changes, agreeing or disagreeing with what has been posted, and sharing personal feelings about a topic.
Example. Students work in pairs to explore both sides of a controversial issue before deciding which side to support. On Day 1, one student researches the "pro" arguments while the other researches "con" arguments. The next day, students switch, completing the Day 2 chart by adding concrete details in support of the original arguments or by finding different arguments and support. Students then use the "Discussion" page to communicate with each other (and to the teacher) about which arguments and details are best and why. The teacher may participate in these discussions, too (Figure 4).
Feature 5: A means of tracking individual, small group, and whole group progress through an assignment. Wikis have a "History" option that allows users to view each change that has been made to an entry since its creation. This makes it possible for the teacher-librarian and classroom teacher to chart progress and identify places in the learning process that require more or less intervention--a useful feedback tool in instructional design.
Example. In the "Writing a Persuasive Essay" assignment, each change to a page automatically creates a link on the "Versions" page--sometimes called the "History" page (Figure 5). Some wiki software even allows you to compare new and old versions of a page side by side. This allows both student and teacher to chart progress through an assignment, and it provides opportunities for the teacher to intervene when necessary to keep collaboration on track. It also discourages vandalism because pages can easily be restored to an earlier version.
Each of the examples provides structure and support to meet students' information literacy needs while honing collaboration skills. The collaborative context frequently provides an added dimension to student learning--through multiple perspectives, increased data points, and the heightened demands of clear communication among group members, among other factors. Wikis can help teachers and students negotiate that added dimension.
Privacy and Security
Many educators have concerns about privacy and security in relation to wikis and other Web 2.0 applications. A single response to both is to install wiki software on a school's server and run it inside the firewall. This way, unwanted intruders can neither view nor tamper with students' work. This requires some technical expertise and, perhaps, a relationship with a school district's network administrators--something that is all too rare. There are free wiki sites, however, that can be set up with a password so that only invited guests may visit the site and participate in it. Other sites allow user groups in which only designated registered users gain access to the site.
Deleting Online Predators Act
Perhaps a greater obstacle is some districts' refusal to allow any social software applications into its schools. In fact, the Deleting Online Predators Act, passed by the House of Representatives (H.R. 5319, 2006) and currently before the U.S. Senate, would deny federal aid to any school library that did not block commercial social networking sites. Although the greatest fears center on MySpace and similar sites, the language of the Deleting Online Predators Act prohibits access to any commercial site that "enables communication among users," a sledgehammer solution that actually denies students and educators some of the best new learning tools available. It is important that we as information specialists educate our school communities about the far-reaching ramifications of this proposed law.
Getting Started
If you are able to use wikis in your school setting, one final consideration is to choose the best wiki application for your needs. All of the following wiki sites offer free accounts with registration. Each also offers subscription accounts with more powerful options for the account holder.
Seedwiki and Wikispaces offer free wikis with WYSIWYG editors that make them the easiest to use. Seedwiki has a slightly more powerful editing toolbar. Neither site allows a user to password wikis in their free packages, so make certain that students do not include their full names or any personal information on the site.
PeanutButterWiki and Schtuff are a bit more complicated to use, because they require some simple formatting. PeanutButterWiki allows for passwording of sites, affording teachers and class members some privacy when needed. For this reason, PeanutButterWiki is popular with school staff who are planning and drafting School business. Schtuff incorporates blogs into their spaces and allows changes in permission rights so that different users have different abilities to access or change documents.
References
Borja, R. R. (2006). Educators experiment with student-written wikis. Education Week, 25(30), 10.
Deleting Online Predators Act of 2006, H.R. 5319, 109th Cong. (2006).
Engstrom, M. E., & Jewett, D. (2005). Collaborative learning the wiki way. TechTrends, 49(6), 12-15, 68.
Jakes, D. (2006). Wild about wikis: Tools for taking student and teacher collaboration to the next level. Technology and Learning, 27(1), 6.
James, H. (2004). My brilliant failure: Wikis in classrooms. Retrieved September 5, 2006, from http://kairosnews.org/node/view/3794
Lamb, B. (2004). Wide open spaces: Wikis ready or not. Educause Review, 39(5), 37-48.
Lenhart, A., & Madden, M. (2005). Teen content creators and consumers. Washington, DC: Pew Internet and American Life Project.
Nicol, D., Littlejohn, A., & Grierson, H. (2005). The importance of structuring information and resources within shared workspaces during collaborative design learning. Open Learning, 20(1), 31-49.
Phillipson, M., & Hamilton, D. (2004). The romantic audience project: A wiki experiment. Retrieved September 8, 2006, from www.rc.umd.edu/pedagogies/commons/ innovations/rap/toc.htm
Richardson, W. (2006). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Feature articles in TL are blind refereed by members of the advisory board. This article was submitted July 2006 and accepted August 2006.
~~~~~~~~
By Doug Achterman
Doug Achterman is the teacher-librarian at San Benito High School, Hollister, CA, and is currently a doctoral student in the interdisciplinary studies library and information science program at the University of North Texas. Doug's e-mail address is dachterman@sbhsd.k12.ca.us.
