Jun 252008
Some of the lecturers I work with have started using wikis in their courses this semester. Students and staff have reacted largely positively. They appreciate the collaborative work they can now do but don’t enjoy the usability. After doing some wiki introduction sessions, seeing the Moodle wiki in action over the semester and also supporting staff in their use of other wikis (Wetpaint, PBWiki), I have a few additions to my Moodle Wishlist, to do with the Moodle Wikis. Here’s what I wish for:
- On Edit automatically open the enlarged version of the editor. Very rarely is a wiki page short enough to be comfortably edited in the small editor version. And it is the nature of wiki pages to grow so why not open straight into the larger editor?
- Threads or comments function associated with a page. The current workaround is to set up a discussion forum to go alongside the wiki. But this leads to posts like: “if you go to the second page in the Tools category you can see the work I’ve done…”
- Improve the internal linking. Add a drop down menu or button (Insert Wiki Link) with list of pages to choose from. The current process has too many steps:
- Find the exact page name,
- Then copy its name
- Then find page you want to put the link on
- Go to Edit mode
- And paste the name between square brackets.
- Improve the picture upload. The Binary File option is clunky and using it is unlike any other action students take in Moodle.
- Allow creation of Userpage. Having your own wiki space can be motivating and a way of creating buy-in. (Could this perhaps also show overview of user’s actions in the wiki?)
- Allow creation of template pages. Being able to set up templates would allow staff to guide students better in what is expected of them.
- Add an Add page button. Creating a page by giving it a name in square brackets is a simple action but an unfamiliar concept that is difficult to explain.
I love wikis, but am a bit scared about how online students will react to them. Have these students had a f2f introduction?
Couldn’t agree more about the usability of the Moodle wiki (and blog!) There seems to be an assumption that people will come from a wiki background instead of a diverse background that may not have included this sort of technology. Not looking like nWiki will offer improvements in this area
Hey Kim, thanks for reading my post. I worked with 4 different teachers. Only in one case were the students fully online. The others were regular classroom-based courses or block courses.
In 2 cases the teachers introduced the wiki in the classroom. In one of the block courses and the online version, I did an introduction session.
Students in classroom and online really liked them. Tips for introducing wikis in Moodle:
- remind students that after a longer period of time, the page will time out. So to either save the wiki page regularly or do the work in word processor and paste,
- explain the history/versioning straight away, this provides much peace of mind,
- when using in the classroom, explain that only one person can edit at a time, but there is no warning and so may overwrite someone else’s work. (Mmm, suppose warning or locking the page could go on my wishlist too)
- nothing beats Lee LeFever’s common craft video Wikis in Plain English to explain how wikis work. I introduce this video by linking it to a problem they’ve all encountered, trying to write a group essay or group report. Start with one copy, send to 4 group members, they send their edits back, now there’s 5 copies, repeat and there’s 10 copies. This usually rings some bells, what, an entire glockenspiel ; ).