The growing emphasis on online and distance learning in most universities today has caused many instructors to reevaluate their collaborative practices in online environments. Fortunately, course management systems (CMS) such as Blackboard, WebCT, and Desire2Learn contain tools such as chat rooms and discussion boards that can help students. Web 2.0 technologies also add an array of tools to assist instructors in their pedagogical pursuits. Discussion boards, social networking sites, blogs, and wikis that are free and user-friendly make adding additional tools to build community and collaboration possible. Because of their open and democratic nature, wikis perhaps are one of the more uniquely situated Web 2.0 tools educators, especially distance educators, can utilize to build community and foster collaborative learning.
Community and Collaboration
In the composition classroom, especially one that holds that thought and knowledge are socially constructed (Bruffee 640), students’ varying perspectives can create a richer, fuller learning environment, one that encourages students not necessarily to come to a consensus but rather to understand the variety of perspectives that exist on an issue (Harris 269). Furthermore, and perhaps more important, by understanding knowledge as social and not static, students can then begin to challenge assumptions, values, and authority (Bruffee 649). Echoing this, John Trimbur claims that the use of collaboration can develop in students, as Harris and Bruffee suggest, a greater ability “to generate differences, to identify the systems of authority that organize these differences, and to transform the relations of power that determine who may speak and what counts as a meaningful statement” (602-03). This helps students critique the culture around them and understand that they have valuable intellectual contributions to make.
Wikis as Collaborative Tools
Wikis hold great potential to promote community and collaborative learning in a writing class. Aside from their general ease of use (Wilson Lundin 436) and their ability to show the growing multimodality of writing (Moxley 184), to emphasize rhetorical choices in a blank wiki page (Wilson Lundin 436), and to display the non-linear nature of the writing process (Navarre Cleary, Sanders-Betzold, Hoover, and St. John), wikis have an open nature that can better facilitate collaborative learning.
This openness begins with its structure. As Rebecca Wilson Lundin notes, writing instructors can capitalize on this structural openness to encourage deeper considerations and conversations about rhetorical choices (440). This does not take the instructor out of the picture, though. Wilson Lundin found that some students disliked the lack of openness and wanted greater structure, something she responded to by establishing minimal structure—direction enough to encourage participation but without stifling organic conversation about and development of the wiki and the course material (441-42).
This openness of structure also produces a space that is more open in terms of power and writing, too. Matthew Barton notes that since wiki readers are also its authors, the hierarchy that privileges authorship significantly weakens in a wiki (183). Pedagogies that try to disrupt the teacher/student hierarchy and encourage more collaborative interaction between teacher and students certainly can benefit from using a tool that reiterates this perception. Additionally, the type of writing that wikis encourage is also quite democratic. All users have the ability to add, edit, and delete any parts of the wiki; no one person’s knowledge contribution is exempt. And by allowing users to see the edits of others, “[w]ikis emphasize a progressive, democratic aspect of writing” (Barton 187) that value the process as much as the product, something that composition pedagogy has been working toward at least since the 1970s.
But more important is the ability that wikis have to promote collaborative learning. Certainly, this extends from their open and democratic nature. Since wikis (theoretically) don’t allow any one person’s views more privilege than another’s views, the “Community of Power” where one person or a small group of people holds all authority of the interface and the content, is replaced more easily by the “Community of Learning” where knowledge is shared and open (Moxley 186-87, 191). This positions students “as part of a community of learners and cocreators” (Tharp 40), and it helps position the instructor as a member of this community rather than as the source of knowledge, the gatekeeper working to indoctrinate students into a certain set of knowledge practices. Furthermore, students learn to take into account the perspectives of others, debate their claims, and otherwise engage in the rhetorical and persuasive acts writing instructors teach (Wilson Lundin 441; Navarre Cleary, Sanders-Betzold, Hoover, and St. John).
Review of Google Sites Wiki Creator
When considering new tools to use for our classes, especially Web-based ones, we must remember to approach our use of them critically (Hawisher and Selfe). As with any tools, wikis can have limitations that we must recognize. Students may have difficulty accessing Web tools that are not part of their university’s CMS; students may be apprehensive about using tools that are new to them; universities may not allow instructors to incorporate outside tools; some wikis may force much of the form on users rather than allowing them to consider their designs rhetorically (Arola); users can “vandalize” the wiki by posting inappropriate or false information; and some wikis charge monthly or yearly rates for access. The job of instructors is to choose a wiki that fits their individual pedagogical needs through its flexibility, one that is easy for all parties to access and use, and one that is cost efficient. Google Sites offers a wiki that can generally meet these criteria but is not without its limitations.
Google Sites is an extension of the ubiquitous Google search engine. It allows anyone with a Google account create his or her own Web page or wiki. It contains a what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WSIWYG) editor and additional templates for pages, though users can change and customize these templates to suit their needs quite easily. While not specifically designed for pedagogical purposes, a wiki created through Google Sites easily meets pedagogical ends. Because of the wiki’s flexibility, instructors can create pages for syllabi, calendars, peer review, group projects, or anything else they think will benefit students.
Accessing and using Google Sites is quite simple. The instructor establishes a page and chooses a template. The template has more to do with the graphical features of the page than determining its overall layout. Since about everything is customizable, instructors can choose images, page layouts, navigation links, and many other features to suit their needs. Some sites (Pbwiki, Wikispaces) dictate some more features and even have less user-friendly interfaces (mostly the case with Pbwiki) that take more time to learn than does Google Sites. And as with other wiki creators, Google Sites allows the creator to establish the level of privacy. The site can be completely public or accessible only to those the creator invites to the site. And inviting members only requires their email address. They can be invited as owners (who can change all parts of the site, add and edit any pages they would like, and even delete the site), collaborators (who can add, edit, and delete pages and add attachments and comments) or viewers (who can only view the site). So even the level of interaction is customizable.
Students, too, can easily access Google Sites. Once receiving the invitation email from the instructor, students need to create an account—if they don’t already have one—through a link provided in the invitation. After completing this, the student can click the link to the site that is also in the invitation. Depending on the level of access the instructor gave to them, students can begin interacting with the wiki at this point. Editing and creating pages only takes a click of an easily-identifiable button. Page histories are also easy to find, so students can track changes that have occurred on any page. Users can add links, upload images and video, link to other pages on the wiki, and include drafts for review with just a few clicks in the editor mode.
Google Sites also has a few other features of note. The number of users in unlimited. Sites like Pbwiki, which sells versions of its software, limit the number of users in their free versions. Pbwiki, for example, allows a site to have 100 users, which, for one writing class, is acceptable unless the instructor was using the wiki across numerous sections. In addition, Google Sites is absolutely free. Many wiki creators are free, but some do have versions that users can pay to access with more features and fewer restrictions on use. The lack of cost of Google Sites is certainly appealing to instructors who don’t wish to (or can’t afford to) pay for wiki space and whose university doesn’t subscribe to a service like Pbworks (of which Pbwiki is a part). And while some free sites make up for this by allowing ads on the wiki the instructor creates, Google Sites is free of ads, unless the instructor chooses to monetize the site.
Despite these benefits, Google Sites has one significant drawback. It only allows 100 MB of storage per wiki. (Pbwiki’s free version allows 2 GB and Wetpaint’s storage space is unlimited.) This can be a serious hindrance to an instructor who might want to encourage students to create personal Web pages complete with images and to upload many drafts of essays or group projects/presentations to the wiki. But if an instructor wanted to use this wiki space to include discussion of course materials and group work (collaborative knowledge-building) in a more open and democratic fashion and use the CMS for drafts, 100 MB might prove enough space.
Conclusion
Wikis can provide an effective tool to reinforce current collaborative and democratic pedagogies popular today. They offer a unique way to create collaborative communities, especially in distance learning courses where students have little to no f2f interaction with one another. Providing such a community can not only benefit the students’ writing skills by encouraging more writing and revision in an open environment with a real audience but can also help students challenge power structures and cultural assumptions. And because wikis generally have a more open environment, students might appreciate such lessons more since the methods support the content. But instructors must carefully choose their tools with their pedagogy in mind. In this instance, I recommend Google Sites for a basic, entry-level wiki because of its cost and ease of use, instructors who want to incorporate more multimodal elements into their courses might find its storage space limiting.
Works Cited
Arola, Kristin L. “The Design of Web 2.0: The Rise of the Template, the Fall of Design.” Computers and Composition 27 (2010): 4-14. ERIC. Web. 1 June 2010.
Barton, Matthew D. “The Future of Rational-critical Debate in Online Public Spheres.” Computers and Composition 22 (2005): 177-90. Print.
Bruffee, Kenneth. “Collaborative Learning and the ‘Conversation of Mankind.’” College English 46.7 (1984): 635-52. JSTOR. Web. 3 June 2010.
Google Sites. Google. 2010. Web. 28 May 2010.
Harris, Joseph. “The Idea of Community in the Study of Writing.” On Writing Research: The Braddock Essays, 1975-1998. Ed. Lisa Ede. Boston: Bedford, 1999. 260-71. Print.
Hawisher, Gail E. and Cynthia L. Selfe. “The Rhetoric of Technology and the Electronic Writing Class.” CCC 42.1 (1991): 55-65. Print.
Navarre Cleary, Michelle, 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.
Moxley, Joseph. “Datagogies, Writing Spaces, and the Age of Peer Production.” Computers and Composition 25 (2008): 182-202. ERIC. Web. 28 May 2010.
Pbwiki. Pbworks. 2010. Web. 4 June 2010.
Tharp, Tara Leigh. “‘Wiki, Wiki, Wiki—What?’ Assessing Online Collaborative Writing.” English Journal 99.5 (2010): 40-46. Print.
Trimbur, John. “Consensus and Difference in Collaborative Learning.” CE 51.6 (1989): 602-16. Print.
Wetpaint. Wetpaint. 2010. Web. 4 June 2010.
Wikispaces. Tangient. 2010. Web. 9 June 2010.
Wilson Lundin, Rebecca. “Teaching with Wikis: Toward a Networked Pedagogy.” Computers and Composition 25 (2008): 432-48. Print.
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