Challenges+of+Wikis

Challenges to Using Wikis

Students Forgetting Passwords Unfortunately, I think this will always be a problem with anything that requires students to log in to a website.

Schedule Changes If you set up projects using Wikispaces and there are schedule changes, you will have to go in and set up the groups again, change permissions, etc... This can be a hassle.

Pages Cannot Be Edited by Multiple Users at Once

The Wiki can be edited by a variety of users at the same time, and an unlimited number of users can post on the discussion boards at the same time, however individual pages cannot be edited at the same time by more than one user. If multiple users try to edit the same page at the same time, a message will appear stating that the page is already being edited by another user. If the person disregards this notice, someone's work will be lost.

To counter this problem, I tell students to type information in Word or Google Docs first, then to paste the information in the Wiki and save. If students are attempting to add links, widgets or other items, they will just have to redo those things if this error happens. Additionally, I tell the students to check with their partners before they edit the pages.

Formatting Issues

Occassionally, Wikispaces has some weird formatting issues that arrise. For example, I have seen an instance where if someone hits "Edit," the page appears blank. To fix these issues, if you check the revisions and then revert to a previous version, it almost always seems to reset the page and allow you to edit again.

Permissions and Settings

When you create your Wiki, it will ask you if you want to have the Wiki be "Public, Protected, or Private." Choosing Public allows anyone with internet access to view and edit the page. Protected will allow anyone to view the Wiki, but only members can edit or post to the discussion board. Finally, "Private" will only allow members to view and edit the page.

I always choose "Protected," and I do not think I would use the other two settings. Obviously, if you choose Public, you run the risk of random people on the internet logging in and editing pages your students have developed, which can create a variety of issues. I have considered using Private, but if I choose that option parents, counselors, or special education staff that would want to track a student's progress would need to have an account and be invited as a member in order to check their progress. This, in my view, is too much work for what it is worth.

Additionally, you are going to want all of your students to add you as a member to their Wikis, and then they need to go into membership settings and make you an "Organizer." All students who are members of a group in a Wiki should also be organizers. This will give everyone access to doing important things on the Wiki.

Organizing Access for You

If you have multiple students working on projects on various Wikis, you will need an organized, systematic and centralized way to track all of the Wikis. I have found that having students post a link to their Wiki in our SharePoint site (or you could use Moodle, Blackboard, or another learning management system) subdivided by class period is helpful in tracking the Wikis. You could also set up a central Wiki to have everyone post their link to (see HERE for an example of how I do this in the Sociology Media Overview Wiki).

Another option could be setting up your Wiki using the new, spring 2013 update for educators. This option allows a number

Tracking Student Usernames

As you are setting up the Wiki, you should have a systematic way of having your students register for a Wikispaces account. Be very direct and explict with this right away, otherwise you will get usernames like THAT1GUY45 and then you have to figure out which student that is. I usually tell the students to do first name.last name (e.g. Kent.Hrbek). Sometimes, that doesn't work if they have a common name. I will tell them to do something similar then.

Assessing Discussions

If you assign discussions that students must participate in, it becomes difficult to track how many times they have posted, which posts they responded to and how throughly they are following the discussion. If you go to the "members" page and click on a user, it will give you their profile with statistics on how many page edits they have completed and how many posts they have on a discussion board, which gives you an idea of what they are doing, but (to my knowledge) you can't search for all of their posts in one central place.

Stability Issues

I have found that on some computers, Wikispaces will crash if it has a number of embedded items. I believe this is a RAM (or some other hardware) issue. I do not have this problem on my home computer, but occassionally I will have this problem at school on our laptops. To address this issue, do not have the students embed too many widgets on each page. If you keep the number under 10, I believe you should be fine most of the time, unless the Widgets are large or require a lot of computer power.

Many of these issues appear to have been fixed or improved with the new educator's update...but I have not had a chance to verify this.