Wikis: Pros and Cons for Adult Learners

Many would agree that the most popular wiki is Wikipedia developed by Howard G. Cunningham in 1994.  Wikipedia defines a wiki as a “web site that allows visitors to add, remove, edit and change content” (King and Cox, 2012 p 121).  Although some may argue the accuracy of Wikipedia, King and Cox (2012) note that 30% of internet users rely on the website to search for terms and meanings.  Many count on Wikipedia as a starting point for more in depth research. Wiki was intended to create an easier way to exchange ideas for people collaborating on projects.  That purpose has not changed in the 18 years since Cunningham developed the software; however, the application and use of wiki has broadened.   This week, my blog assignment is to discuss the pros and cons of wiki as it relates to the adult learner.

Pros:

• Wiki allows students to work collaboratively engaging in constructive learning.
• Wiki may appeal to different learning styles.
• Wiki empowers students by giving them voice.
• Wiki is instrumental in the Engagement Theory’s components of relate, create, and donate.
• Ideas can be revisited and revised, allowing for critical reflection, better articulation, and concise writing.
• It does not take any formal understand of html to create a wiki.  It is very user friendly.
• Wikis provide a history feature allowing participants to go back to a previous version.  This ability may make group members feel more secure because they can always retrieve previous edits.
• The essence of wiki is to be an open, living document, but some can be password protected to allow for limiting outside access and contribution. (Some may see this as a negative)
• Instructors can use the openness of wikis to discuss ethics, responsibility, privacy, etc.
• Wikis encourage communities of practice and social learning where groups who share an interest come together to learn more by exchanging ideas and perspectives.  “Learning becomes a process of reflecting, interpreting and negotiating meaning among the participants of a community (Stein, 1998 as cited in King and Cox, 2012 p. 124).”
• Participants do not have to be co-located to collaborate.
• Learning to work with wiki involves skills necessary for most work environments encouraging professional development.
• There is evidence that students retain more information when constructed in a cooperative manner.
• Wiki allows instructors to monitor group participation.

Cons:

• Wiki is limited with regards to layout and edit tools.
• There is opportunity for work to be inequitable among group members.
• Wikis can be edited by anyone allowing for inaccurate, irrelevant, or inappropriate information or comments.
• Instructors need to develop a grading rubric for wiki in order to prevent drawing conclusions strictly from the history feature.  Depending on the group’s division of labor, participants may not appear to contribute as much as others do; however, their role may not be to add content.
• Difficulty maintaining a current page.  Hyperlinks may lead to web sites that no longer exist or are no longer current.  Even the text for our class has a “dead” link that is intended to be an example for reference.
• Constructivist theory assumes a student is self-directed.

The wiki format takes full advantage of the constructivist approach to adult learning.  Constructive theory describes an active and social learning process that involves constructing new ideas based on current and past knowledge.  Learners rely on their schemas created from past experiences to develop hypothesis and make decisions about new information.  Constructivists believe that transformative learning is possible with active dialog and discourse to encourage scaffolding of knowledge and perspective to create new understanding (Cullata, 2012).  These collaborative groups form learning communities creating a new culture, termed “collective intelligence (Hazari, North, and Moreland, 2009).”

There are other ways to collaborate asynchronously.  However, e-mail, blogs, and chats tend to be more informal, author-centric, and personal with regards to writing style.  A wiki encourages more formal, topic-centric, depersonalized writing.  Every time participants edit the wiki, there is documentation holding each accountable for their contribution.  This style of writing is common in the business world, and wiki writing may be effective in helping to teach it (Warschauer and Liaw, 2010).

I think there are far more pros than cons in utilizing wiki in an adult education setting.  Not only are wiki projects a great method for incorporating adult learning theory such as andragogy, transformative learning, and constructivist theory, but it also builds technical skills necessary in most work environments.

Here is a screen shot of my favorite personal experience with a wiki project. Please follow the link to see the complete wiki project: Power Privilege Wiki Project

References:

Cullata, R. (2012).  Constructivist Theory (Jerome Bruner).  Instructional Design.Org.  Retrieved from   http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/constructivist.html on September 11, 2012.

Hazari, S.; North, A.; & Moreland, D. (2012).  Investigation Pedagogical Value of Wiki Technology.  Journal of Information Systems Education, 20.2, pp. 187-198.

King, K. & Cox, T. (2011). The Professor’s Guide to Taming Technology. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

Warschauer, M. & Liaw, M. (2010).  Emerging Technologies in Adult Literacy and Language Education.  National Institute for Literacy.  Retrieved from http://lincs.ed.gov/publications/pdf/technology_paper_2010.pdf on September 11, 2012.

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