Wikis: Pros and Cons for Adult Learners

What is a Wiki? A wiki is an online collaborative writing medium that is easily edited (Lari, 2011). Richardson (2006) describes a wiki as "a collaborative web space where anyone can add content and anyone can edit content that has already been published" (p.8, as cited by West & West, 2009, p.3). Wiki's can be used by anyone. There are many free options for a group to start sharing information through a wiki, such as Google Docs. Wikis are optimally designed for collaborative use by distance learning students that are creating a group project or employees spread throughout different geographical locations that must work together on a deliverable product. Wiki's provide an online, easily accessed and editable alternative to email chains, discussion boards, or blogs. Wikis are similar to these other forms of online communication, in that posts can occur asynchronously, and multiple users can be commenting and working on the project at the same time or different times from different locations. Wikis can also be used for people with common interests, such as a community of practice, to share their collective knowledge and expertise with the world (Lari, 2011). Wikis are best utilized by any group of people that desire to share ideas, collaboratively build on each other's ideas, and shape their online footprint by molding it into the desired product over time. When it comes to group projects, wiki is a tool that enables "many hands to make light work." Check out this video below about how educators and learners can utilize wikis in the classroom.

 

 

Wiki Advantages: West & West (2009) highlight the pros of incorporating wikis into education for learners in the twenty-first century. Wikis encourage participation of all students and interaction between learners. Timid learners may be more apt to post their comments and ideas, knowing that they can easily be edited later or improved upon by another group member. Bonk, Lee, Kim, and Lin (2009) give a great example of students using wikis for "writing as thinking" where thoughts are encouraged to be revisited, reused, and repurposed by members of the group in a continually growing and collaborative learning process (as cited by Lari, 2011). Wikis are also very intuitive to use. "Learners with little or no knowledge of HTML can collaboratively use, create, and modify Web content. The learning curve for wikis is generally low, and learning groups given assignments with a solid purpose and clear structure have a high capacity for quickly engaging in knowledge construction, critical thinking, and contextual learning." (West & West, 2009, p.2). Wikis are convenient; they offer an approach to group writing and editing where the project is available for editing and comments to all members at all times. Group members are rarely stuck waiting for others to send them products in order to contribute to the project. Wikis also house an internal mechanism to track each person's contributions to the project and maintain a record of changes with options to restore the webpage to prior versions as needed. Wikis come in a variety of shapes and sizes, so choosing the right wiki for the project based on the design and privacy functions that you need is important.  There are also many different methods that can be used to start a wiki. There are free online wikis, subscription-based wikis, learning management systems (LMS) with embedded wiki programs that provide more security, and wiki software that can be purchased and downloaded to a computer or server.



Wiki Disadvantages: This clip from the popular TV show, The Office, facetiously depicts some of the disadvantages of wikis.

While one of the biggest advantages of using wikis is ease of collaboration and editing, this is also the most significant limitation of wikis. Any individual can edit or change the content of the wiki, which may lead to inappropriate or irrelevant information that was not intended by the authors or that detracts from the focus (Lari, 2011). Passwords can be created for most wikis, which will restrict viewing of the wiki to only those people that are invited by the authors. This function adds privacy and security, however, it greatly limits the audience with which the knowledge is being shared.

Other disadvantages to using public wikis in education are that the authors may concentrate more on their writing style and grammar, rather than the content because they are concerned with how their writing style will be judged by the larger public online community(Lari, 2011). Additionally, educators must choose the type of wiki that will best meet the needs of their learners (West & West, 2011). Grading the collaborative project can pose another barrier for some educators. It is important to establish clear expectations about how the students will be graded on their participation and collaboration that ensures that all students have a voice in the group and that their contributions are not "rewritten or edited out" by other members of the group. Reviewing the online wiki participation log to gauge participation can prove to be very time consuming for the grader. Lastly, Educause Learning Initiative (2005) discusses how collaborative group work can introduce collective bias into the project, that learners and educators should be aware of (Lari, 2011).

 

References

Lari, P. (2011). Blogging as reflective practice in the graduate classroom. In K. P. King & T. D. Cox (Ed.), The professor's guide to taming technology. Charlotte, North Carolina: Information Age Publishing. 

West, J. and West, M. (2009). Using Wikis for online collaboration: The power of the read-write Web.  San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.