Technology & Learning - October 2007 - (Page 38)

» Point of View By Kathy Schrock Critical Evaluation in the Collaborative Era What role should a wiki play in authentic research? I began using critical evaluation techniques back in 1995, when I was choosing sites to add to my then-new portal, Kathy Schrock’s Guide for Educators. I would look at a potential entry and use a series of analytical questions to determine, first, if the content would be useful for teachers, followed by a rather formal process to determine the authority of the author and the validity of the information, and, finally, look at the navigability of the site. I then created Web site critical evaluation tools for teachers and students to use based on my process—tools that have been used extensively over the years. As social collaborative tools such as blogs and podcasts proliferated, I added new tools to evaluate them. As even newer tools show up on the Web, I investigate them to determine how they can be used in education. One of the new types of social collaborative tools I feel is useful to support teaching and learning is a wiki. With a wiki, a user creates and posts content, and then anyone else can log in and change or update the content, and all iterations are archived and accessible. For student collaboration, peer editing, note taking, and many other uses, the wiki is a great educational tool. Teachers can easily track student postings and acquisition of knowledge since all of the changes 38 | www.techlearning.com the information is correct? Do they look at every iteration of the page and try to determine the authority of everyone who edited the information? What about the fact that the creator’s real name may not appear anywhere? True, Wikipedia does allow viewers to see all the edits made by other users. So should students then take a look at each editor’s summary page to see if that particular user is posting to many Wikipedia pages on similar topics, which may (or may not) indicate he and updates are logged. or she is an expert on the topic? The However, the multi-creator, infortraditional methods of attempting to mational character of the public wiki determine the authority of an author defies my ability to critically evaluate would include looking at the “About the information. One of the largest the Author” page, conducting a Web and best-known wikis is Wikipedia, search on the author’s name to find which touts itself as a “free encycloout how he or she is mentioned by pedia.” I have others in the field, difficulty, as a and doing a back“Does passion about a topic library media mean the information is valid ward search on specialist and an the author’s Web and reliable?” educator, coming page to see who up with a process links to the to evaluate the information located author’s site. How does one complete on a Wikipedia page. Granted, conthis task on Wikipedia with so many tent creators who are passionate authors of a single article and no real about a topic maintain these pages, names? but this passion may also lead to Even if I go along with the users of biased information. And does passion Wikipedia who say that it is self-corabout a topic also mean the informarecting—since so many volunteer tion is valid and reliable? “editors” monitor the pages and correct Since anyone can post content, any erroneous information—I would and anyone can edit the content on a still like to find out a little bit about wiki, how do students determine if these “editors” who are creating con- http://www.techlearning.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Technology & Learning - October 2007

Technology & Learning - October 2007 Editor’s Desk News & Trends Product Guide Reviews How Fast Is Fast Enough? Cover Story: Career Education in the Digital Age Getting It Wrong Higher Ed Point of View How To Bottom Line What’s New Emerging Tech

Technology & Learning - October 2007

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.