The SITWiki Commandments at Deakin University (Augar, et al) seems to address what would be one of my major concerns about using a Wiki. At one point during the past year my students were in the library doing some research on Huck Finn and one of my students thought it would be funny to edit Wikipedia to mention that another student had not showered that morning, so that under the heading of Twain's life, it said something along the lines of, “Bob did not take a shower this morning.” These commandments would see the students facing disciplinary measures if they had inappropriate postings. It says that “Offenders will be dealt with in accordance with Deakin's Internet Usage Guidelines” (Augar, et al). In class the other night, someone (I forget who, sorry!) brought the concern of anyone being able to edit or delete content, and having this disclaimer on every page might help to prevent that. The commandments themselves are also geared to preventing poor usage of the Wiki: “The first step was the development of a set of four clear usage guidelines. Powazek (2002), advises that usage guidelines should be short, simple and written in a positive tone” (Augar, et al). This lead to the following commandments:
“1. Post frequently, Post well, Post haste
2.Be nice
3.Wiki unto others as you would unto you (When posting on the wiki treat other online group members as you would like to be treated)
4.Remember that your contribution is critical to the success of the group”
Not only are these positive reminders, but they are also somewhat humorous and one would hope that students take them seriously and at least notice them because of that. These commandments helped to foster an active and supporting online community, and that is something that I would certainly be striving for if I were to use a wiki with my classes.
It would certainly be fun to have all 120 of my students accessing the same page; we could have some fun conversations linking all the texts together (this is happening in my imagination right now). Imagine sophomores and juniors having a discussion about justice that uses The Crucible from the sophomore curriculum and Macbeth from the junior one. I'm getting chills just thinking about it.
I do have on gripe with this article: Too many simple sentences, and not enough sentence variety.
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I loved in this summary how you pointed out the fantastic tone of this article! It really is quite humerous when discussing the commandments of blogging. I know as a teacher I appreciated it, and to be honest, I think the students would appreciate and respond better to it too. I am, however, still concerned about students breaking those commandments just to get a laugh. It seems like a lot to "referee" and as a middle school teacher, I just wouldn't put it past some of my students to try to be the "funny one" despite the rules. This is my one and only hesitation towards using wikis, so I suppose that if I used them in a way that they students simply collaborated on them, it could work. It certainly is food for thought!!
PS.....I loved the story about your students and Huck Finn. You have to give them credit for creativity!!!! Haha!
The wiki article was, oddly, inspiring. The potential is enormous. Imagine -- you could ask groups of three - four student to create a wiki about the themes discovered in chapters 1 - 4 of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Students would really get into this kind of project. My question, though, is -- could wikis also be used for chatting purposes? That would be great...
Dan, I don't know how you kept a straight face when you read what one of your students wrote. Its so juvenile its funny. I also think it was just harmless and silly goofing around but I also understand the need for discipline and guidelines for usage.
The "commandments" you listed sound like just using your common sense and good judgement posting.
But I also can see the need for s-p-e-l-l-i-n-g it out for kids who'd use the old, "I didn't know it wasn't allowed..." excuse, so I agree that guidelines would keep things running smoothly without effecting any creativity or community discussions.
You have such a great idea creating a site where your students can have discussions with literature but I cannot even imagine managing 120 students on the same page. 120 students? Do you really think it would work with that many students? I'd be really interested in seeing how it works. I love Macbeth.
To Dan -- my gripe was with typos. Was it just me, or was "discusses" spelled incorrectly in the third line? Was it spelled discuses? Is this word spelled differently in Australia? And is "internet" usually capitalized? I could be wrong on that...
Simple sentence structure never bothers me. Students I teach could actually try that out more; they try to write long sentences, which end up being bad...
I assumed a lot of the grammar and spelling came from it being in Australia. British English is weird, and I can't even begin to imagine how weird Australian English would be.
I didn't notice this spelling in Australia, but who knows.
I really like the idea of cross-class discussion. Two of my former teaching interns, one now teaching at UMB and the other at UNC/Greensboro, are having their students work with the same readings/activities and exchange with each other. The students seem to be finding it very interesting.
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