Team 3 PresentationSuccess through Simplicity: On Developmental Writing and Communities of

Inquiry; Maxwell (Wiki)Breaking up and Organizing Content: Chapter 6 (JR)

Presenters:Gere Hirsch, Shannon Jones, Spencer Shields, Max Sundermeyer

Spencer Shields Presenting

Success through Simplicity: On Developmental Writing and Communities of Inquiry

The virtue of absolute architectural simplicity pays off in the real-world

Unlike a blog, a wiki focuses on the group instead of the individual

The medium of a wiki works most effectively when students can assert meaningful autonomy over the process.

Success through Simplicity

A wiki is a body of writing that a community is willing to know and maintain

The original WikiWikiWeb was not designed as educational technology

Idea was simply to distribute the task of assembling the collection of software “patterns”

As this collection grew, they system grew to allow anyone to add and edit content

It was the simplest thing that could possibly work

Educational Wiki

Research gains strength by bringing together both the discordant and the harmonious

Gains strength by providing a forum for variance and diversity

Successful wiki sites, like WikiWikiWeb or Wikipedia, are fundamentally “ongoing”

A wiki captures or presents the evolving now of a discourse community

Perspective Technologies

Our gradual adoption of the wiki has been a response to the unsustainable complexity and inflexibility of many existing tools and platforms

Use of the wiki crept in gradually as an experiment in supporting group work

Big challenge is that of scaling up the notion of “radical trust”— an essential feature of wiki-enabled communities

Experimentation with wikis in the classroom has been entirely positive and successful

Using a wiki in classrooms

Success through Simplicity: On Developmental Writing and Communities of

InquiryMaxwell and Felczak

Gere Hirsch Presenting

Wiki Writing

CSILE, a knowledge forum database Apple Computer provided support for

introducing CSILE into schools. It was used in Toronto schools for five years,

as well as in an elementary school in Oakland, CA

CSILE

Ricki Goldman's Constellations system. This video ethnographic tool

Evolved into Orion, an online digital video tool.

The goal of Constellations and Orion is to create a collaborative environment.

Constellations

An early creation of Mark Guzdial's. He started it at Georgia Tech in 1993. This was prior to graphical interfaces.

It was followed by several other projects, including CoWeb and Swiki.

Today, Guzdial says that computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) is relevant for today’s MOOCs and other on-line learning experiments. (http://computinged.wordpress.com/2012/10/16/what-i-have-learned-about-on-line-collaborative-learning/)

CaMILE

“Radical Trust : A notion that influence, rather than control, is more effective at guiding culture, commerce and communities. ” http://www.radicaltrust.ca/about/

Radical Trust

Scaffolding has been defined by Wood, Bruner, and Ross (1976) as an “adult controlling those elements of the task that are essentially beyond the learner's capacity, thus permitting him to concentrate upon and complete only those elements that are within his range of competence.”

Scaffolding

Writing-intensive learning program is divided into two methods:

writing to learn course material, and learning to write.

Writing Intensive Learning

Students read the work of other students They used the wiki as a source of ideas,

insights, potential counterarguments. Search sources and writing relevant to their

own topic. Referenced other students' work Created a collaborative study guide

Unanticipated Wiki Uses

Shannon Jones Presenting

Breaking up and Organizing Content

Overview• Content• Organization• PDF’s• Conversation

Letting Go of the Words: Chapter 6

Websites are places to obtain information. Not a place for lengthy documents.

Websites must keep only the information needed; No Fluff.

Break information down into “index cards”. Create links for information to create smaller webpages.

“Information,” not “document”Redish: 102-104

Only the information the site visitors want. No extra information is needed or wanted.

Webpage length: Scrolling is OK. Only three to four scrolls per page. Anything more you run the risk of losing interest.

Download Time: Keep in mind not everyone has Broadband connection speeds. Don’t put in to much information. People with dial-up will not be happy if they have to wait for a page with to much information.

Printing matters: People don’t want to print 50 page documents. Only the information they need that will fit on one or two print pages.

Technology matters. Keep in mind the social media and smart phone users.

How much to put on one web page?Redish: 113-119

Paper’s Journal articles Reports Fillable Forms Or anything else a user might print that is

suited for paper based use.

PDF’s: When to UseRedish:120

When the visitor only wants quick information. They don’t want a full article to trudge through.

The visitor’s are on primarily mobile devices. PDF’s are not fun to read on a smart phone.

The visitors have no need to print. The visitors don’t know how to use a PDF

reader. Not everyone knows how to sift through a PDF file to find what they are looking for.

If you want your site to be focused on accessibility; don’t use PDF’s. Information is not easily accessible in a PDF file.

PDF’s: When Not to UseRedish: 121

Max Sundermeyer Presenting

Breaking up and Organizing Content

• Think of the questions that people ask when coming to you site. • Use “I” and “my” questions near the front of

your website. • Dividing our content by topic or task

• Topics are categories of information that are natural groupings for people’s questions.

• Tasks answer the “How do I…?” questions.• Topics lead to tasks.• You must consider how much of one topic or

task to put on a webpage so you do not overwhelm the user.

Dividing Your Content Thoughtfully

Separate different products or services on your website.◦ Examples: Best Buy, Target, Home Depot

Dividing information by type is often a successful strategy. ◦ Make sure site visitors can easily move around

related information.◦ Successful links – both ways◦ Policies and procedures pages◦ Move the conversation ahead through your sites

links

Dividing Content by Product and Information Type

Useful if your site offers a lot of different products or services.◦ Some site information might be useless to certain groups.

Have your users self-identify on your site Does pose risks

◦ Forces you to make assumptions about site visitors◦ Forces site visitors to make assumptions about

themselves◦ In order to have a successful conversation, people must

identify with the correct group. Forces the visitor to think right away. They may start down the completely wrong path if they

choose wrong.

Dividing Content by People

It is crucial that you use terms that won’t offend anyone. Otherwise, they may not want to identify with that group

We may not use the same language as our site visitors.◦ We assign different meanings to words, category titles

Each visit to your site is a separate conversation.◦ People will change their level of knowledge the more

they visit your site, forcing them to identify with different groups multiple times.

Risks Continued

Some site content is based off time periods in people’s lives.◦ Sites on retiring or having a baby◦ Specific audiences

Dividing content by time sequence is effective for helping people navigate through a decision◦ Buying a home

Dividing Content by Events and Time Sequence.

Information architecture is a critical part of your content strategy.◦ Learning how to effectively organize your web content

allows for smoother conversations with your site visitors. Web content can be divided in many different

ways. ◦ It is critical that you know your audience◦ Know what you offer!

Some sites divide content using multiple techniques.◦ Risky but can be effective when done right.◦ Example: Verizon Wireless - www.verizonwireless.com

Putting it Together