1

Emerging Technology: Wiki

Center for Faculty Development, SJSU

Steve Sloansteve.sloan@sjsu.eduhttp://sloantech.blogspot.com/

2

Agenda Emerging Technology and Wikis? Emerging Technology (ET)

Define and understand ET Where wikis fits into ET

Define and understand wikis Wiki nuts and bolts

Using a wiki How to create a wiki Wiki tools

Summary Benefits of wiki Downside of wiki Wiki lab

Conclusion, credits and conversation

3

Important First Step

Please be sure you signed in!

4

Emerging TechnologiesPortable Phones, an emerging technology of the

pastPortable phones once niche players in

telecommunications

Hard to use

Cumbersome

Expensive

Now considered one of the three things everybody hasWallet/purse

Keys

Portable phone

Continuing to change face of society, this tech is still emerging

5

What is Emerging Technology?

What are some other emerging

technologies?

The adjective emerging has 3 meanings Coming into view

Coming into existence

Coming to maturity

Internet + Weblogging The read-write web

Dan Gillmor, “We the media”

User enabling software-hardware Common computers over 1 billion instructions a second (Super

Computers, “Lethal Weapons”)

Media creation applications such as iMovie, iPhoto etc.

Portable devices OQO, Sony devices, Nokia and “Scoble” phones

Always-on broadband in the home Cable-DSL

Ubiquitous connectivity, “digital dial tone” 802.11, Cellular, RSS, (wireless plus download)

See:

•www.answers.com

•www.bushin30seconds.org

6

Understanding ET

“Disruptive Technology”

Sustaining verses emerging “disruptive” technologies Disruptive, in this case, means products and technologies that

disrupt established solutions and markets, but sustain the underlying process

In an educational setting this can be viewed as methods that offer easier, faster, better and/or cheaper ways improving learning outcomes

See:The Innovator's Dilemma, Clayton M. Christensen

7

Wikis and Emerging

Technology

Wikis are an Emerging Technology Wikis are a subset of Emerging Technology

Wikis A wiki is software that allows anyone to freely create and

edit web pages using a web browser

Predate weblogs (March 22, 1995)

Are social software

Depend on a community to maintain

Anybody can change pages on a wiki

With versioning, there's no need to try to prevent bad things from happening, so long as they can be quickly undone.

Get back to the last good version, then start out again from there

Takes less time to fix things than it does to break them

See:

www.corante.com/many/¬20030801.shtml#50187

c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiHistory

8

Wikis work with other emerging

technologies, like RSS

9

So, what is a wiki? Definition:A wiki (sometimes spelled "Wiki") is a server program that allows users to collaborate in forming the content of a Web site. With a wiki, any user can edit the site content, including other users' contributions, using a regular Web browser. Basically, a wiki Web site operates on a principle of collaborative trust. The term comes from the word "wikiwiki," which means "fast" in the Hawaiian language.

See:

•www.whatis.com

10

Understanding Wikis

A wiki allows a visitor to the "wikified" web site to edit the content of the site from their own computer.

Visitors can also create new content and change the organization of existing content.

The simplest wiki programs allow editing of text and hyperlinks only.

More advanced wikis make it possible to add or change images, tables, and certain interactive components such as games

See:

•www.whatis.com

11

What wikis look like

See:•http://130.65.55.223:3455•http://en.wikipedia.org•http://www.atlassian.com

12

How wikis work:server side view

Web Server Like Apache

Wiki Engine Implements the wiki technology

A content management system (or CMS)

A system used to organize and facilitate collaborative digital content creation.

Wiki software tends to focus on the content, at the expense of the more powerful control over layout.

Many types

Majority Open Source

UseMod, TWiki, MoinMoin, PmWiki and MediaWiki are some of most popular

See:•http://en.wikipedia.org

13

Some uses for wikis in education

Collaboration & peer mentoring

For distance learning

To facilitate group based learning Even if team members are not collocated!

For remediation and peer support Creates a peer-to-peer based Help Desk

Advanced and or highly motivated learners can generate and/or consume extra content

For helping students with hearing and/or other learning disabilities

Version control allows the ability to track the evolution of ideas, projects and solutions

To allow educators to escape the tedium of lecturing by offering more engaging content

To offer a richer, more engaging (fun) and more hands-on learning environment Bloom’s Taxonomy (Cognitive, Affective, Psychomotor)

14

Who does Wikis? Bernie Dodge

San Diego State

Instructional Technologist

Blogger

Teacher

See:http://webquest.org/http://webquest.org/bdodge

15

Who does Wikis?

Susan Otto

SJSU

CADRE

associate professor of new media at the CADRE Laboratory for New Media at San Jose State University

Cross Media Artist

See:http://cadre.sjsu.edu

16

Who is using Wikis?

See:

•http://itde.vccs.edu/wiki(Virginia Community College)

17

A place to playand learn!

See:

•http://c2.com/cgi/wiki¬?WikiWikiWeb

18

Downsides of wiki Depends on an active, diligent community

By nature it is “hackable” Subject to “broken window” effect

"One unrepaired broken window is a signal that no one cares," Wilson and Kelling have written, "and so breaking more windows costs nothing."

Major changes in faculty/student relationship Value of human interaction cannot be ignored

What about the student peer relationship?

Digital does not substitute for human interaction

May prove to be a barrier to faculty and/or students who are tech challenged

Lack of manageability

Potential for information overload

19

Wiki Excercise 1. Use web browser to browse tohttp://130.65.55.223:3455

2. Click on “Sloan’s Group”

3. Any username is okay(Make one up, hint: be your favorite cartoon character)

4. Password is:scooter

5. PlaySee:

•http://130.65.55.223:3455

•http://www.projectforum.com

20

Wiki Excercise

See:

•http://130.65.55.223:3455

•http://www.projectforum.com

ClickHere

21

Contact info and conversation

SJSU Steve.sloan@sjsu.edu

(408) 924-2374

General Skype/AIM: ssloansjca

Web: www.edupodder.comMain Geek Blog: sloantech.blogspot.com

(408) 605-0692

S_sloan@mac.com

Conversation What do you think of wikis?

Please do an evaluation

22

www.sjsu.edu/cats/2003/showcase/