Using Wikis to build learning communities

Wikis have become ubiquitous in many student environments. A web-based tool that allows any user to quickly author his or her own web page, and others to come to the site and add their comments or edits, it is an easy and efficient way for writers to express themselves and share ideas. But using wikis to teach, and even to build communities of learners who can then collaborate more effectively, is the latest development for the tool that is now integral to a growing number of Stanford courses.

 Evaluating the wiki and analyzing how it is most useful from both the teacher and student perspective was the goal of the project, “Using Wikis to Build Learning Communities,” recently presented at the Educause Annual Meeting in San Diego (http://www.educause.edu/content.asp?SECTION_ID=127&bhcp=1). Co-investigators Helen L. Chen, research scientist, and Dan Gilbert, academic technology specialist, both of SCIL, and Jeremy Sabol, academic technology specialist, of Stanford’s Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL), created a poster outlining how the use of a wiki can foster learning communities. They hope their work will guide faculty and other researchers to further explore the potential benefits of the burgeoning web tool.

 “We both had experience with wikis in our respective work,” explains Chen, a researcher for SCIL who has specialized in e-portfolio learning. “I had been involved in Professor Larry Leifer’s freshman seminar using wikis and Dan had taught a course on designing learning spaces in the SCIL Summer Institute. We wanted to make sense of how wikis were helpful in building learning communities and how instructors could best use them.”

 To create their poster, based on the steps and stages of community building with wikis, Chen and Gilbert collaborated with Sabol, who works with faculty members interested in employing wikis in their courses. The result is a 15-square poster (http://scil.stanford.edu/about/staff/bios/PDF/ELI_Poster1.jpg)  that details the relationships between steps and outcome, beginning with #1: “Determine Goals -- what are learners going to do?” to #7: Connect Learners -- what are the steps to integrate face-to-face and virtual activities?” to #15: Community of Practice.”

  “To develop our framework we looked at four case studies,” explains Gilbert, who is co-teaching a new Stanford School of Education course this spring quarter entitled, Designing Learning Spaces. “We came up with 15 distinct things that happen in the building of a community of learners. Our original purpose was to develop a framework to analyze where wikis are helpful, and where they are not helpful. In the process we were working toward creating a diagnostic tool.”

 The idea for the poster was based on the children’s board game Chutes and Ladders, which moves players from square to square with occasional sliding past a few squares via a chute. The three stages through which the wiki poster moves are design, implement and sustain, with the last stage providing the biggest challenge.

 Instructors can use the poster to help them decide if a wiki is a good tool for a particular class, says Gilbert, who employed a wiki in his course in SCIL’s Summer Institute last year. When the class wanted to quickly create an archive with interesting links students had discovered on learning spaces, they were able to post the sites in one place using the class wiki. Then everyone could visit the links, add their comments and carry on a discussion.

 “The wiki allows the discussion to continue after class is over,” notes Gilbert. “It’s easy and flexible and everyone can be involved.”

 Gilbert plans to use his spring quarter class as a case study for the next step of the wiki project, a published article on teaching using a wiki. Several faculty members are also receiving support from CTL’s Sabol in using a wiki in their classes, including projects at the Haas Center for Public Service.

“We’ve found this framework to be a great starting point for conversations with faculty and staff who are in the process of exploring how wikis might be useful in achieving their course learning goals,” says Chen. “The real promise for this research lies in the opportunities provided by wikis to create connections among learners within an environment that can capture evidence of learning and interaction that would otherwise be invisible.”

For more information about using wikis at Stanford: http://ctlwiki.stanford.edu/

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