In my day job I’m the lead software trainer in the software training and support department at the Dallas County Community College District. Our job is to deliver software training to the district employees. The DCCCD has 7 campuses and a virtual college and we provide training at each campus plus our own location. The software we train includes MS Windows, Office, GroupWise email, PaperWise document scanning software, RCams document storage database, Colleague – the district’s academic database, and other specialty software.
When we are in training classes we learn from the students there, increasing our expertise. This gave me the idea to create a wiki where we share software tips and tricks. The department can post different tips and tricks and allow other employees to post their tips and tricks as well. I have also included a section on each subject wiki page where questions can be posted. The software team or anyone else can then respond to the question so others can also learn. This is an idea I will take back to my team for discussion in our monthly meeting.
I think Wikis are such a great tool. The advantages include utilizing the skill and knowledge of a group and being able to easily share and discuss topics asynchronously. Wikis are an excellent class addition to engage student’s higher level thinking skills while learning team cooperation. The main drawback to a wiki is ascertaining if the information in one is accurate. People seem to think that just because you read something on the Internet, it must be true. Our students need to be taught how to discern if information is reliable or not. Another drawback to the wiki in education is grading a group wiki based on the amount and quality of work each student contributed. I have seen one educational wiki that shows the instructor how many lines and pages each student contributed to the wiki. While that helps, it still makes it difficult to grade.
I think the wiki tool is ideal for a digital native. Today’s digital native likes to explore rather than be lectured to. My son grew up as a digital native and has his iPhone with him constantly. Any question he has, he uses Wikipedia on his iPhone for the answer. Wikis are second nature to him, so the idea of creating and editing a wiki is very engaging and in their comfort zone. The digital natives dive right in and figure technology out for themselves. Anytime my mother needs her TV changers explained or anything digital set, she calls my children. I think through the use of video games, the digital natives have become accustomed to engaging each other from a distance by playing over the Internet. Working on a wiki cooperatively is much the same so will make sense to them.
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