An Introduction to Digital Environments for Learning

University of Edinburgh Session 2004/05

Assignment - Using a Wiki for a Collaborative essay

Dr Marielle Lange (m.lange@ed.ad.uk), Dr Jessie Paterson (jessie.paterson@ed.ac.uk)

Please, grant me the serenity to accept the pages I cannot edit,

The courage to edit the pages I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference

—The Wiki Prayer

We decided the best way to work was to produce a separate page for what we saw as the main areas of interest - these are listed below and clicking on the "wikiword" takes you to that page. For each page we have tried to produce a summary of the final thoughts/conclusions for that area, followed by the working notes we produced during the development (in original format).

SummaryConclusions (Summary and Conclusions)

IntroDuction (Introduction)

HowWeActuallyGoAboutDoingThis? (How we went about it?)

HowISetUpThisWiki (How this wiki was set up?)[this page was added by Paul Anderson; who assisted in setting up the wiki]

TechWiki (Technical Aspects)

ExamplesWikiUse (Use of Wiki - Examples of use in teaching)

CollaborativeWiki (Use of wiki - other than teaching)

ReasonsWikiUse (Use of Wiki - Reasons for using)

ProblemsWiki (Use of Wiki - possible blockages and recommendations to avoid them)

FutureWiki (Use of wiki - future)

OurWiki (Our wiki - the experience of how we found it/what we learned/thoughts for future)

LinksAndReferences (References and Links)

Note

In this assignment, we have decided to espouse the Wiki way rather than follow the usual academic procedures for writing papers. The Wiki way implies that this work has been conceived as an extension of content already produced, rather than an original written work. One consequence of this is that we produced extensive content “cloning”, which is seen as acceptable and of widespread use across wikis. As it rather seen as ‘plagiarism’ in an academic context, we have made every effort to distinguish the content that is original from the one that is cloned, by putting the cloned one inside a table, with the mention cut/paste on top. We have also made every effort to clearly indicate the origin of whatever content we have borrowed or adapted. We cannot guarantee, however, that the reference we provide are the ones that link to the real author of the material borrowed... So it goes with Wikis that content sharing is more valued than accurate authorship.

Getting started information

Put the mouse over the icons and it will tell you what they do. For help on Kwiki syntax and other Kwiki issues, visit http://www.kwiki.org/?KwikiHelpIndex.

NB Wikiwords are words containing a capitilised letter at the beginning and somewhere else within the word - e.g. SummaryConclusions. The system recognises these as links to pages!