Profile Wiki

I knew nothing about the process of setting up a wiki but it seemed simple enough. I must admit I struggled to find the relevance to my learning; however, when we were asked to pair up with another person with similar interests for an activity it all started to make sense. My level of engagement soon increased to the point where I went back to add more information about myself so that I may give fellow students a bit more of an understanding of ‘who’ I am (Kearsley & Shneiderman, 1999). I now appreciate the benefits of these ICT activities in a learning context, even though I paired up with a friend I already knew. I noticed most of the internal students preferred to do it this way also. Those most to benefit from the profile wiki were the remote flex students. Although I am feeling overwhelmed with everything this week I found the profile wiki simple, effective and fun. My thinking has been broadened from the traditions of classroom teaching of twenty-five years ago. I was relieved to experience success in the first two activities of this course which is very important to me. It may just give me enough confidence to make it through to the end.

In the classroom, this activity could be used in the same way as in this course. Particularly, for those students, like me, who are shy or new and find approaching people in person difficult. Profiling through wiki gives student some basic information about others in their grade which could be used to give students a platform to approach others to begin to connect. Also, when there are a number of classes, profile wikis can help bridge the social gaps across the grade. I think the profile wiki caters for students across the learning styles. While the main page is predominantly text, ideal for the audible learner, it does provide links to pictures, videos and games to support the visual and tactile learners.

Profile wikis have a strong link to the connectivism theory (Siemens, 2004) in that the profile identifies persons within the class with similar interests and experiences as mine. Through wiki profile I have access to email or phone numbers so that I can establish a communications pipeline to access the appropriate information from the most suitable source. Constructivism is also identified as the information provides a schema for other students to compare and identify similiarities and differences with others. eLearning potential here for group work planning and drafting. Everybody edits and communicates from the same page which eliminates the messy email system where students can be accidently left out of the loop and collaboration is more difficult.