"Contribution types" in Wikis - using Tikiwiki. Xavier de Pedro

• Asking students to think about and select which type of contributions, from an ordered by importance list, they are producing before editing or posting (wikis, forums, blogs, spreadsheets, comments...)

• Improve quality of collaborative building of knowledge and associated learning
• Improve quality of document written by students in group work (blended learning)
• Promote Experiential-reflective learning (Kolb 1984)

• 1h initial training in usage of platform (Tiki)
• Regulated by teacher activities + self regulated students work without teachers
• Individual and group tutorships
• Assessing & grading students by the final product AND also by activities along the PROCESS

• List initially set by team of teachers
• also "open" to student suggestions...

Wiki edit example:

• information about contributions browsable by students (optional) and also editable by teachers.
  user | date | wiki action | wiki action type | object | category | +bytes | -bytes | Contribution (type) | edit button

• opportunities for self-regulation by students of their effort invested to develop the specific and cross competences
• allows teachers to have quantitative data to characterize the contributions of each individual of a work group
• means a substantial improvement with respect to traditional methodologies in the ability to evaluate student learning when teachers are not eyewitness of the activities
• facilitates the personalized tutorship "at early stages", so each student can realize what aspects he/she has adequately developed, what other aspects have not been adequately developed (and remedy can be put in time)
• allows teachers invest weekly less effort since the beginning (instead of a huge effort at the end) to supervise, validate or correct and feedback to student

• method does not appreciate the intrinsic quality of the edited text. Critical reading, validation and appraisal of students contributions by teachers is necessary
• can be inadequate if it is used to promote "police control" of students actions. Its main potential is, instead:
  • serving data for tutorships with students along the process,
  • help detecting and reverting "early enough" whatever handicaps that prevented some students improving their contributions
• could have some students who refuse to use it, if previous negative experience with Wikis.
  • in some cases: lack of adequate prior instruction about the best practices for using Wikis.
• 2-3 times more investment of time by teachers is needed to evaluate student contributions (type and sums of sizes).