E-learning and the power of wikis. Pt 1

When people hear the term wiki they generally think of Wikipidia. Wikipidia is a wealth of informational content on the web. But one of the drawbacks to Wikipidia and of all wikis is the accuracy of the content. This stems from the ability of anyone to edit the content. With this ability, there is the possibility that someone may place unreliable content in the wiki. Most of the time inaccuracy is due to oversight error but at time it may be intentional, but the latter is not very common. In either case the error can be easily and quickly fixed when detected. This editing feature weak-point is actually becoming the wikis strong point as collaborative editors take ownership of the wikis and watchdog for errors.

But wikis are developing into another online tool apart from just a collection of information. With more people online and the web becoming a dynamic read/write platform, wikis are evolving into a very powerful collaboration environment for learning. The following chart points out this wiki power.

Comparison of Asynchronous Communication Tools

• Wikis: Collaborative Authorship; Dynamic; Nonlinear and Multiple Construction
  
• Blogs: Single Author; Static; Linear Construction
  
• Threaded Discussions: Multiple Authors; Static; Threaded Construction

West, J. A., West, M. L., (2009) Using Wikis for Online Collaboration. The Power of the
Read-Write Web. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass p. 5.

Assessing Assessments

By far the most most neglected aspect of training assessment is lack there of. I have been in many training session that did not have any type of assessment. In those sessions that did have an assessment, the assessment was treated almost like an after thought. Some of the reasons that assessments are not treated seriously is because most training developers do not understand this process in the development cycle (Shack, 2005 p. 3). Assessments if used properly will serve as a vital reinforcement of the the content that was presented. This can be further developed by going over the assessment as part of the final stage of the learning event. Again, I have been in training session where assessments were given, but we turned them in as we left the class and we never saw or heard the results.

Although poorly written assessments abound even a well written assessment can be of little use if it does not fit properly in the the learning event; it needs to be a part of the event not just an after thought. It have to offer validity for its existence in the event other wise the students will view it as an unnecessary and uninteresting annoyance.

Shank emphasis the importance of assessment by her statement “...designing adequate learning assessments is a skill well-worth learning” (Shack, 2005, p. 6). It will take time and effort to develop they ability to write good assessments, but the pay off for both the developer and the student will be well worth the effort.

Shank, P. (2005). Avoiding assessment mistakes that compromise competence and quality. Retrieved from http://learningpeaks.com/pshank_assessmistakes.pdf