CITRENZ 2011:MediaWiki case study

Introduction
Since 2008 the vMVwiki has been used to deliver teaching and learning to
 * Diploma and undergraduate students, in a New Zealand Institute of Technology,

and has been discussed in papers presented to
 * the Distance Education Association of New Zealand (DEANZ 2010) and
 * Computing and Information Technology Research and Education of New Zealand (CITRENZ 2010)

The actual wiki was used to deliver the presentation, rather than the more usual Microsoft PowerPoint delivery

Issues: Technology

 * Challenges
 * Delivering content in the cloud
 * Breaking through institutional firewalls
 * Spam and vandalism
 * Continual re-editing
 * Benefits
 * Content is available
 * Content is browser based
 * Content can be viewed on many devices

Issues: Content and context issues

 * Challenges
 * Including external content
 * Managing ©
 * Content out of context
 * Having incomplete content
 * Content continually changing
 * Content of varying quality
 * Sourcing content and digital rights
 * http://commons.wikimedia.org/
 * Learning wikicode
 * Benefits
 * Content is always up to date
 * Content may be re-used

Challenges: Academic staff issues

 * Challenges
 * Development time
 * Loss of income
 * Universities are also pressuring their academics to bring income into the institution to help them survive
 * Losing control of personal content
 * Benefits

Issues: Student issues
Knowledge of the use of Web based technologies is required
 * Challenges
 * Reluctance to edit
 * "I also think its a lot harder as a young person to realise that as a pupil you also may have something to contribute, we come from years of schooling where its teacher/learner with set roles."
 * Ability to read and process screen based content
 * Dual monitors.
 * Benefits
 * Collective authoring: critical reading and responsible writing
 * Collective ownership of work
 * Writing as a process and knowledge sharing over time
 * Benefits of publishing online
 * Students are familiar with the environment
 * Students can take ownership
 * Students have a built in personal note system
 * Prepares students for Web 2.0 technologies
 * Promotion tool