Using Wiki in Student Affairs

     Marie wrote a very interesting post about the potential use of wikis in the field of student affairs eac539classblog.blogspot.com. I really like the idea of using a wiki for students to create a “guide” and share their suggestions for successfully navigating the first year of college. This could be set up as a public, inquiry-based wiki that is organized according to various topics (Lamb, A. and Johnson, L., 2009, p.51). These topics could include areas such as educational resources, local shopping and dining, tips for meeting new people, upcoming events, community resources, etc. The challenges with using a wiki in this situation would be finding someone to monitor the site to weed out inappropriate comments or suggestions and to have IT staff available for answering questions related to using the wiki, solving computer glitches, and other technology related issues. Most importantly, it would require students willing to put in the extra work to post on the site. Perhaps a prize, such as a Starbucks card, could be given every month for the best post to encourage participation.

     Although I think wikis are wonderful tools, I do want to point out that they also have their quirks. For example, we used a wiki for our teachers at the school where I work. They used a wiki to communicate with their students and parents. Everybody loved the increased communication. The only problem was that the wiki did not always work. It had a wysiwyg interface, but it didn’t always post what was written in the editor. We finally figured out that if the teacher used too many colors or changed fonts too often the wysiwyg editor became overwhelmed and stopped working. Also, whenever we had system updates the wiki would stop working until we contacted the hosting company for a fix. Although these glitches did not stop us from using the wiki, they did provide a reminder to always be prepared for glitches and hiccups when introducing any new technology.

Brunsell, E. and Horejsi, M. (2010). Wiki,Wiki. The Science Teacher. Vol. 77(4) 12. 

Lamb, A. and Johnson, L. (2009). Wikis and Collaborative Inquiry. School Library Media Activities Monthly. 25(8) 48-51.

The Advantages and Disadvantages of using Second Life in Online Education

     Second Life has the potential to be an extraordinary asset to online education. It can be used for a variety of purposes such as building community between a group of learners, creating simulations that contextualize learning, reproducing historical and cultural artifacts that would otherwise be inaccessible, and providing novel ways for learners to develop new content. (Warburton, 2009, p. 421) Creating instruction in Second Life would engage learners at multiple levels by involving sight, sound, and personal interaction with others. Immersing learners in a 3-D world allows them to experience new situations and solve problems that would otherwise be impossible for them to comprehend, such as setting up role-playing scenarios for career training.

     Although there are many benefits to using Second Life in an online learning setting, there are also a number of disadvantages. Some of the biggest disadvantages revolve around time issues and the need for high-end technological resources. Using Second Life takes up a lot of time for the instructor, the student and the technology department of the university or school using the website. Second Life is a very complex program and it takes expertise and a lot of work to create a new “world” for instructional purposes. An instructor would need to go through training to properly design instructional content. Once a virtual world has been set up, the learners also need time to figure out how to navigate their new “world”, create new content, and collaborate with others. This can be a frustrating and “isolating” experience for users. (Warburton, 2009, p. 423) The technology department at the learning institution would have to have the time and resources to make sure that equipment at the school would be able to handle the high demands for bandwidth and processing speed. The IT department members would also need to be able to address technology-related questions that faculty and students have about running the program.  Finally, if learners don’t have access to adequate technological resources they won’t be able to experience the full benefits of Second Life and may even lose interest if their computers are slow or if they don’t know how to use the program correctly. (Petrakou, A., 2010, p. 1020) As a result, a lot of thought needs to be given to whether or not Second Life can be used as part of an online learning experience. The instructor needs to weigh the benefits and the disadvantages of using Second Life to make sure that it will enhance the course before jumping in and using it.

Warburton, S. (2009). Second Life in higher education: Assessing the potential for and the barriers to deploying virtual worlds in learning and teaching. British Journal of Educational Technology.  40 (3) 414–426.

Petrakou, A. (2010). Interacting through avatars: Virtual worlds as a context for online education. Computers & Education. 54. 1020–1027.

Tutorial Review

     After reviewing the tutorials covered in class, I have learned a number of useful tips for designing future online instruction. One of the tutorials I found particularly helpful was the one on “Building Community” with Dr. Curt Bonk. Much of the information presented focused on having students in an online class get to know each other on a personal level through ice-breakers, sharing projects, working in groups, discussing common goals for the class, and having chat sessions. The focus was on helping students to connect and build community by sharing as much personal, relatable information as possible.

     Something else I learned from the tutorials was not from the actual content though, but rather, from the way the information was presented. I am planning on developing online video tutorials at the school where I work and have been experimenting with different tools and methods. Since I have been studying different ways to create instructional videos, I was quite interested to see how the video tutorials presented in class were created.  I noticed that the tutorials were designed in different styles and for different purposes. For example, the wiki YouTube video was short and sweet, yet very instructional. It was well-scripted, without any wasted words or movements. The video on “Engaging Students with Multimedia for Improved learning” was also very instructional, but the first three minutes were spent passing out clickers (that didn’t work) and moving around the room to get positioned. It was quite long. I almost turned the video off because it was so distracting watching the people constantly moving around. I’m glad I continued, but it took a lot of effort. The video really needed to be edited and broken into sections to make it more effective. The other videos presented in the course also had their positives and negatives and what I really learned is that it is not easy to create a well-designed, engaging, instructional video. I found myself asking: How does one learn best practices for creating an instructional video? There is a wealth of information available - I need to sift through it, experiment with different video-recording methods, and get feedback from other instructors and users.