THATCamp Jersey Shore, 4-5 April 2011
The Humanities and Technology Camp was created by the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. Currently co-ordinated by Amanda French, THATCamp ground-rules are simple – there are no strict hierarchies or formal presentations, and the participants are drawn from interdisciplinary humanities, including graduate students, academics, librarians and others. Many thanks to Dr John Theibault, Director of the South Jersey Center for Digital Humanities, who ably organised THATCamp Jersey Shore.
Below are my notes on one particularly engaging THATCamp session - Dr William Wend’s introduction to the use of classroom wikis. A wiki is a website that allows users to create and edit webpage content, with the most prominent wiki being wikipedia. Dr Wend championed undergraduate-produced wikis on the grounds that collaborative work allows students to learn from one another, enabling them to evaluate and improve their own work. Videos and slides can be added to the group wiki, and the instructor can monitor how often students contribute. The option to password-protect pages allows easier peer review for either the entire class or one-to-one reviewing. The instructor can also embed their work calendar, so that students can contact or them on campus.
Other benefits highlighted by Boston College Instructional Design and eTeaching Services include:
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The development of a class community, in contrast to traditional classrooms that focus more on the relationship of the lecturer to individual students
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Collaborating on classroom wikis leads students to develop team-working skills invaluable in their future careers. Technology skills, web-based portfolios and online examples of students’ skill-sets will allow them to differentiate themselves in a tough employment market
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Of particular relevance to history teaching, classroom wikis empower students to ‘create knowledge’, using online archives to draw upon primary resources and move beyond reliance on secondary sources
When thinking about the types of technology to include in classroom teaching, it is important to be aware of possible problems of using group wikis, particularly in the first year:
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How should the instructor manage groups and address conflict? One answer was that when creating small groups (5-6 people), they should be allowed to remove people from the group if one does not contribute. How then should an individual project be judged against group projects? Some of the classroom time would have to be devoted to sorting out these issues, particularly difficult in classes with limited contact time.
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Difficulties in overcoming student dislike of emergent-based learning or Project Based Learning (PBL). Student wikis are not the most effective way to teach survey courses, and this method relies on students working effectively in pairs and groups. It is important to pick an effective overall theme for the individual projects.
The second part of the session highlighted best practice for developing classroom wikis:
- At the beginning of the course, the group needs to determine whether the wiki should be open to the public, or limited to the group – the lecturer needs to check University policies about placing students’ work online
- Students need to be aware of copyright issues when posting pictures/documents
- The lecturer should emphasise the difference between the class wiki and other forms of social media, such as facebook and twitter for informality and effective working practices
- The course leader needs to check regularly changes to the wiki, for accuracy
Examples of group wikis/websites on Project Based Learning:
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The American Weekly Mercury website developed by ‘Introduction to Literary Research‘ students (2002-3) at The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey
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The wikis of Dr. Jeffrey W. McClurken, Chair and Associate Professor of History and American Studies at the University of Mary Washington – interesting group blogs
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The Buck Institute for Education Project Based Learning
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Visual Eyes in the Classroom - a web-based authoring tool developed at the University of Virginia to incorporate images, charts, video and data into interactive visual presentations. The website contains effective examples of viseyes presentations
