Article #4: They're Wikis, Not Revolutionary Wonders!

Cleary, Michelle Navarre, Suzanne Sanders-Betzold, Polly Hoover, and Peggy St. John. “Working with Wikis in Writing-intensive Classes.” Kairos 14.1 (2009): n.p. Web. 19 May 2010.

Without question, computer technologies have revolutionized how we teach writing in a number of ways. Yet we seem to be on revolution overload lately. Every new bit of computer technology seems to promise the next revolution. To calm these (often) hyperbolic claims, we need reasonable and practical examinations of these tools to remind us that they are often just that: tools that help us with but are unlikely to revolutionize what we do. This article examines wikis in just such a practical way—no grandiose claims, no promise of miracles.

The authors are frank about their findings. They cannot and will not say with any certainty that the wikis they used for their writing-intensive courses made the students better writers. However, they do argue that the wikis they used in their classes provided students with a useful space to collaborate generally, work on group projects, revise work, and build communities.

They began by noting the generally wide-spread praise for wikis in the scholarship, especially claims about wikis’ ability to demonstrate the “messy” writing process; to give students more autonomy and power; and to encourage students to collaborate, negotiate, and think critically and reflectively. The authors found that some of these praises were well-deserved. Their students did collaborate on projects quite effectively, often creating rich sites of negotiation and “metacognition” where students would reflect critically on their writing. And since wikis record changes, the non-linear nature of the writing process was quite visible, which they found especially useful for students who came to their courses expecting writing to be linear. The public nature of the wikis also kept students revising and thinking about wider audiences. Finally, wikis helped students develop community bonds, even in the f2f classes.

But wikis also produced problems. The instructors wanted to capitalize on the open nature of wikis, but some students disliked this openness. The students also found working around others’ schedules and habits problematic. And instead of using the wiki as a wholly revisable entity, students often approached it as a discussion board, posting comments and changes separately rather than in the text in question. While students did negotiate, they would sometimes choose a revision for the sake of consensus rather than based on what would be the best option. What they found, then, was that wikis may not be the revolutionary tool that some of the literature represents them as.

This article reminds instructors who are considering using wikis (or any new technology) in the writing class—distance, hybrid, or even f2f—that we cannot expect wonders from these tools. The authors certainly promote the use of wikis, but they did not present wikis as a cure-all or the new writing revolution. Rather, wikis for them were tools to enhance their existing practices. Indeed, this article will help my peers recognize that we should let our pedagogy drive our use of technology.