Web 2.0 applications and social networking sites are relatively new pedagogical tools and, as a consequence, scholars have promoted their efficacy based on limited evidence and short-term case studies. There clearly needs to be more longitudinal work done to dig out what works and why it works. Nevertheless, case studies can illuminate some of the complex ways that wikis work and don't work, which longitudinal analysis doesn't capture. To that end, we decided to include our own commentary on using wikis for these courses.

As the research shows, the most successful adopters of the new technology cite a number of reasons or uses for including wikis in their teaching toolkit:

     --student expectations and desires for cutting edge technology (Chase 2007). Should we use this as a reason to adopt new technology? Maybe or maybe not. Are students more or less engaged if they know the technology? We don't really know.

     --the possibility for collaboration among students (Farabough 2007, Garza and Hern 2007, Driscoll 2007, Engstrom and Jewett 2005, James 2004). Collaboration is a primary focus for many researchers interested in a social constructivist theory of education, but only Moxley and Meehan (2007) introduce the collaboration among the instructors and across institutional lines.

     --the possibility for cooperative learning in which each student produces a part of the assignment (Lamb and Johnson 2007). They argue that producing a part for a whole isn't truly collaboration per se, but they fail to distinguish between what one does on paper and the synergy that produces knowledge in the process of cooperating. Collaborative and cooperative learning are just on a continuum scale.

     --the creation of social networks for the students (Richardson 2006). Though Richardson doesn't address this, creating social networks for our adult students is particularly valuable both because it introduces them to new and valuable technological tools and because of the unique needs of adult students. We discuss these issues in the Building Collaborative Learning Communities section.

     --modeling the writing process (Farabough 2007). Given the students' time constraints and history in composition classes, this is a tough one. It may be most successful when the instructor models the process, but can we/do we want to do that?

     --fluency in writing (Penrod 2007). The assumptions about fluency underlie much of the work of scholars who mean by fluency an increase in quality as well as quantity, but, as we've suggested in the main body of this paper, quality is very difficult to quantify.

     --the promotion of performance-based learning (Penrod 2007). This seems problematic to me: I can promote whatever I want but I need evidence that it does contribute to student learning. Do we get more performance-based learning with wikis: maybe or maybe not.

As Michelle, Suzanne and Peggy reiterate in their pieces, our work with wikis involved most of the outlined uses and others not mentioned above. From wikis and ourselves, we demanded much, and the complex demands also made it difficult to determine which single variable (engaged teacher, use of wiki, use of cohort designation, subject matter, autonomy of student, self-selection of student, etc.) contributed to success or how it contributed to success in a longitudinal study. This same criticism, however, applies to all of the previous scholarship; we and they have to rely on individual experiences with wikis to tease out the implications of their use. Hence these sidebar stories.

My story (in two parts)

1. I've used wikis for collaborative assignments (in the Jane Austen class and in the wiki research work). As Moxley and Meehan (2007) point out, is this really collaborative or just cooperative? But you can't even begin to collaborate until there is cooperation among the students, and dissecting collaborating partners can also be difficult. The only major tech problem with this is when more than one student is working on an individual page, but this can be averted by doing individual pages and then putting them together at one time. Researchers, it turns out, often use wikis this way because it means that researchers in different places and at different institutions can work on the same questions collaboratively. Also the wiki doesn't require any extra software, so students can work on the wiki from home, even with dial-up (though who has that anymore?).

2. A wiki as a space for aggregating individual blogs (in courses on Latin America, Jane Austen, interdisciplinary humanities). One could also use individual blogs and aggregate with RSS, but older students are probably more comfortable with the wiki. I have also had students post their facebook sites with a link to the wiki. In essence, I have constructed another social network and, by linking it to their facebook sites, focus on this aspect of the wiki. For younger students, this is nothing unusual except that school mimics their tech life; for older students, this is new.

3. Space for aggregating links (all the courses including the art history classes). Thus far, this is the only use for the art history sites, and I prefer it to Blackboard because I can constantly add to the links, and I don't have to recreate the site every semester (as I do with Blackboard). Students can add to the site as well, which they can't do in Blackboard, and for many of my students who are preparing to transfer as art students, this site allows for future use. In the interdisciplinary course, for example, students must post their music selection for their final essay; they can do this relatively easily on the wiki and not on Blackboard. None of the researchers (perhaps because most are in subjects that are print-based) examined this use of the wiki, its hyperlink capabilities. This is probably the most exciting aspect of using blogs and wikis and is an area that the students are way ahead of their teachers. More research needs to be done in this area, especially with regard to our more visually bombarded culture.

4. Space for publishing course material (except for the grades, since I don't think the site is secure enough). I only do this with courses in which I've dropped a student (who is then "thrown" out of Blackboard) or who has an incomplete to finish with me. The wiki is truly open 24/7 whereas Blackboard closes to the student after the end of the semester. Also I can control the access to the wiki, but I can't control access to Blackboard; a Blackboard administrator does this. Wikis may work better, but this really is just an administrative and not a pedagogical issue.

5. Space to publish current events with easy links to the websites. I can do this on Blackboard as well, but I've found that links often get broken from Blackboard because of the firewall (is it my school's firewall or Blackboard's? I can't tell). For instance, in the interdisciplinary humanities course, one assignment asks student to review a live musical performance. I can use the wiki to direct students to various musical venues (or they can use it to direct me). This is a subset of number 3 and underlines the immediacy of the Internet, not just the wikis and blogs.

6. Most importantly, I think, is that the wiki and blogs allow for non-linear, hyperlinked movement and citations around the site and around the web. People are starting to incorporate hyperlinks in their dissertations, and certainly the explosion of the web means, to my mind, that we have to get students thinking linearly and in an argument, but also non-linearly and visually, which this encourages. Younger students seem more comfortable with hyperlinking (though they might not articulate it this way). Moreover, it allows more interactive engagement with the technology, rather than the shovelware mode of use. Blackboard is strictly linear and hierarchical; it is tagged according to the instructor's hierarchy/categories, not the students' categories. Here's my caveat: the instructor has to model the kind of response that is desired.

Here's my experience with wikis:

As I suggest above, I prefer wikis to Blackboard for a number of reasons, including the minimized hierarchy (though one could embed it in the wiki), the availability of the site (especially during the peak period of 9.30 am to 1 pm), and its intuitive use (with the WYSWYG editing). It also allows for more multimedia, interactive postings than Blackboard (though this depends on the students and the instructors). So for more tech sophisticated colleagues and students, this works very well. Moreover, Blackboard is really set up for the instructor, not the student, and encourages a more passive stance by the students, e.g., topic is....now your response should be....

But because there is no institutional support (at least at the City Colleges--although it turns out that DePaul has an upgraded PBwiki spot--wish they had told someone), the students think it's harder to use the wiki (and it also forces them to think a bit more about how they want to respond to assignments). They also have some problems moving around the site (and I did too, especially when students didn't understand that they needed to link their blog to the main page, so that I could find it).

I've had the best response to the wiki with non-traditional, older students who are more comfortable initiating dialogue (in terms of content) and younger traditional students (in terms of their comfort with the form). Two conditions seem to help the response rate: time in the class to work on the wiki and open-ended questions. I allow, especially early in the quarter/semester, some time in the course to post on their individual wiki page. During this time I can supervise (and hold hands--figuratively, of course) the technical aspect of posting and help students move through the site. Secondly, blogs and wikis seem to work best if the writing assignment is an open-ended (and controversial) question, where the presentation of an argument is less important. OR the student has chosen the topic and thus is more engaged with the material, committed to sharing their ideas; in the latter case, the student is more likely to post frequently and to post with more depth. Without a couple of classes in the computer lab, students don't take the effort to learn the ins and outs of the wiki. What this suggests to me is that once the technology is understood, the inherent flexibility on all levels appeals to the more engaged student (and conversely also engages the student more deeply).

There is also the use of the site for blended communities both across DePaul and City Colleges, but also with "known" experts in other institutions. For instance, the class went to a lecture by a well-known Princeton instructor at Newberry, we then met with the instructor and added him to the wiki community. This allowed students to make connections they wouldn't normally be making.