[Air-L] wiki tool suggestions?

[Robert Worthington]

I've used both www.socialtext.com and Confluence
(http://www.atlassian.com).  The former offers a free hosted service and
is very easy to use.  I particularly like the big "edit" button at the
top of each page - you can't make it much easier than that.

Confluence is a little different from the more typical, open-ended wiki
structure.  New pages are organised hierarchically, with breadcrumbs
assigned automatically.  I think this gives users more of a feel for
where they are in the wiki, which can be confusing if you are used to
more traditional navigation structures.

Hope that's useful.

Rob

-----Original Message-----
From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org
[mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Emma Duke-Williams
Sent: 07 September 2007 14:12
To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
Subject: Re: [Air-L] wiki tool suggestions?

I personally like Wikispaces, which, by default, has a discussion board
attached to each page. That could be good to ensuring that discussions
between students about changes, are tied to a particular page, rather
than getting lost in other discussions/ emails that they're having.

I've recently been to ALT-C - a conference in the UK for Learning
Technologists. One of the papers (
http://www.alt.ac.uk/altc2007/timetable/abstract.php?abstract_id=1220
) looked at how students were using wikis etc. They found that students
found the group work aspects very difficult, and the most common way of
creating a wiki was for them to divide up the content and create a
"page" each. Reference was made in the presentation to a different
session, when "Wiki etiquette" was discussed (not sure which session, as
i didn't go to it). They made the point, however, that they'd spend a
lot more time discussing how much work most students need to help them
effectively use a wiki.
(The presentation doesn't seem to be linked to from the page. Others
that I went to were, so hopefully this one will appear at some point)

I know that when I had students creating wikis, they were definitely of
the "I'll do that page & you do that page" variety. So, getting them to
understand what a wiki really involves is, I think, going to take quite
a bit of work.


--
New URL: Blog: http://userweb.port.ac.uk/~duke-wie/blog/
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