Roopnauth,+Patricia

I believe that Wikispaces is a helpful forum for individuals to interact and participate in. It is easy to use and can be accessed by its users from anywhere at any time because it is conducted on the web. It is useful to gather and store loads of information that invited members can view and even edit at their discretion. To add to this space i decided to write on two topics which concern technology today and are of interest to me, and thought my peers would find interesting as well. One was on Microsoft and its launching of Vista, its new Operating System. The second was on the Blackberry, which is a remarkable wireless device that has taken innovation a level further. After checking them out on the web and reading articles about them, I thought they would be excellent topics to include and make available to my peers. My collaborations are both useful and interesting. In terms of community maintenance, I reviewed a few of my peers' pages and made some editorial corrections. I feel that my chosen topics are relevant to issues discussed in class and touch on some interesting areas of discussion for infomation communication technologies, (ICTs). I also participated in putting my thoughts out there in the test feedback page and the assignment feedback page. It was nice to view the opinions of my peers and how they felt about it. Wikispaces is great for helping stuents to stay connected. A very effective communicative tool that should be incorporated into more courses to help students, but not have such a big role in their grading.

Personally, I do not like it in terms of something we are to be graded on. The topics and discussions that occur on Wikispaces is great for interaction purposes but as for an administrative one for a lab project, I do not think it is acceptable. The content added by individuals is not participatory but rather forced, which kind of undermines wikis in the first place. To discuss the content further, it is likely to be plagiarized material, or just ramblings of something the person could not care less about, making it a forum of useless information. I would have much rather preferred it as more of a discussion forum that is of more relevance to the course content. During first year in CCT100, I remember that every week in lab we would have a discussion question prompted, it would be discussed in lab and we were all respnsible for posting our thoughts and reflections about it at the end of the week. It was always related to what was discussed in lecture that week, and partly to the readings, making it an excellent tool for aiding students in keeping up with course material. Also, the content was more of an opinionated nature, whereas wikis are based more on a factual basis. We would go over our peers comments in class and it would be very useful and most importantly very relevant. In the use of this Wikispace I find it very hard to believe that most of the students in this class have read 50% or more of the content posted here. I understand the argument that it can be a storehouse of information, making a wider set of resources available to us, but we can use this to what end? We do not have a paper due for the course, so we do not need to partake in any real researching activities. So now that we have all added this factual information, I guess it can help us for test two, but the students of the class on a whole, are not being evaluated on their thoughts and ideas, (which is what I think something like this should be used for in academic terms) but just factual information they have cited from somewhere else. Also, it has made our lab time almost useless, because all that is discussed is "keep up with collaboration on Wikispaces" no actual discussion of course content. In terms of grading, individuals who chose to elaborate on topics discussed in class versus those who actually researched topics and discussed it how will the line be drawn on what is more "relevant" to the actual project requirements. Posting information about the test, assignment and course topics should not really be held as important as topics actually thought about and taken from outside the course parameters. Because really that is just a regurgitation of information already known (handouts, and lecture notes) and outlined. In that case this post could be considered a part of the collaborative process.

In terms of using a forum of Wikis in the future, I believe it would be more constructive if a weekly topic were outlined and those in the class may add to it with their thoughts and opinions. Something more laid back, making it truly a discussion that everyone can take part in. Almost like blogging, but I guess with Wikis some kind of research and factual information should be incorporated. It is a useful tool for students, and it is excellent that it be introduced to them in a classroom setting, but I highly disagree that it should be weighed as highly as 25% of our final grade when it does not really allow us to show much intelect. In a media class full of possible discussion topics of interest, I would much rather listen to my peers voice their opinions than having to read them - when they may have been altered through the wonderful world of Wikis. My suggestions for future students that may partake in this same experience, using Wikispaces or Wikis in general is to always choose a topic that you are interested in and feel you can discuss comfortably. If choosing a topic feeling that it would be the best, or choosing it because it seems the most intellectual will make it too hard to develop when posting your findings. Besides, why waste time to research something you couldnèt care less about? Always be sure to respect the opinions and ideas of your peers, keeping a friendly environment, one that can be educational and fun at the same time. Remember that it is a collaborative work, so the more you want to put out there the better.