Chapter 3 Post 3 September 29, 2011 WIKI-WIKI

I shouldn’t have been startled by the fact that Wikipedia is so reliable, but I was. I have used it many times, understand how it works, but--at first--was suspect about an encyclopedia that anyone can change; then again, when I use it, the information always does seem reliable. Before reading this chapter I hadn’t thought about WHY that might be. Now I know (pp 55-58). So it makes sense that Wikipedia is known for its accuracy, not the other way around.

Yes, Mr. Richardson, I am inspired by the Wikipedia example, and yes it is exciting that “a single individual can contribute to the sum of human knowledge.” (58). Actually humans have been doing that throughout recorded history—but I get your gist: that through the internet and wikis in particular contributing to that sum can be done by  virtually anyone at any time, and that is something new. More to the point, WIKIs act as vehicles to add to the “sum” by teachers, by students, and by others at almost any level. The “anyone” example, that of adding a recipe is a good one, at least in this regard.  What I do not understand though is why a WIKI in particular is necessary to do that (add a recipe?). Why not some other vehicle that does not afford multiple authorship? As explained in class, WIKIs can hold far more information on them than can blogs—so if that is the reason I suppose I understand at least to some degree. But in the copy, the author cites this kind of example (and others) and indicates that it is the collaboration and negotiation that are the key factors. In my view collaboration and/or negotiation in the recipe realm and other like additions “to the sum of human knowledge” might well be a real negative:

If I were adding my late Aunt Fanny’s recipe for Sweet German Marble Buntcake to the internet, I would recoil at the notion that it could be the subject of such treatment—as it’s already perfect! Seriously, if anyone wanted to try that recipe and change it, that would be fine, as long as the original recipe were left intact. No collaboration would be needed to subsequently publish another renamed version with those changes, crediting Aunt Fanny as the original source. This would be far better than revising and thereby wiping out the recipe in its original form.  Perhaps this is a silly example, and yet the notion of the recipes was written about by the author in this particular section. 

On the whole, right now, there is so much tolerance for poor etiquette and even worse for those unaware of the full responsibilities of digital citizenship that I would worry about the collaborative part—a lot. The results in many other realms might be far more consequential than an altered recipe. I worry about all kinds of changes and usurpations that are consequential in one regard or another, and I worry about the veracity of changes made by a population of contributors far less diverse than, say, Wikipedia’s or other far reaching OPEN sites.  Nonetheless I am indelibly impressed with several of the student projects, presentations, and results Richardson tells us about on pages 63-66 and have a huge amount of respect for the students and faculty who are responsible; evidently all, including the teacher overseer, are passionate and hardworking almost beyond belief.

Despite all my protestations above… I will make a long –term goal of orchestrating a WIKI made up of my students with moderate disabilities, all of whom will be asked to be collaborators. I have never been one with low expectations and won’t settle for those now! So we will try it; I know somewhere in the back of my mind, I am already working  what might be the right kind of subject matter or quest and what kind of experience and comfort with the medium I must have before beginning. After all is said and done, I am sure that just as there is a place for individual achievement , so too the advances that come about through collaboration also will be considerable. Just as the internet already has changed the way   heavy internet think, I trust that kind of change will touch each of us in the future.  Certainly, we’ll never know if we never try.  I do not want to be guilty of not trying. In class the other day I asked my students to ponder and answer: “What would you attempt, if you knew you could not fail?” None of them wrote WIKIs, but I’ve decided, I will. For now, my WIKI will be my own “teacher-web.”