Analysis+and+Reflection+Salma+Aziz

=Salma Aziz=

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**My Experience**
First of all, I think the wikispace assignment was a great way for me to start writing down what I know and share with others. This collaborative writing experience has given me the confidence to start posting thoughts on blog spaces, and intellectual information on wiki spaces. For this course, I really liked the idea of our own private space where we write about topics related to our course, or our course material, discuss and share knowledge with our peers. In fact, the study guide posted by students for test one helped be review concepts and prepare for the test. I observed that in the beginning of the assignment, a lot of students gave this space a face lift almost every week. Noticing the changes made on the wikispace, it gave me the inspiration to also contribute and be part of the wiki community.

My first time on it, I thought it was really easy to use. I did not have any trouble registering, uploading my images, make and link new pages, and anchoring to different sections of the same page. At first, I made a few mistakes but I always went back and tried to fix it until it actually worked. The best part about wiki is that there is no way we can wreck it by clicking on too many tabs or options.

**Contributions**
My first day on wiki, I tested by just writing down few thoughts on pages already created by someone else like Blogs and Wikipedia. I didn’t have any problem editing and saving the content. After adding a bit on those two pages, I already felt confident about adding more content and become and active member. Later, I created a new page on Spyware and wrote five pages of content with internal and external links to related topics. I also created a page titled Virus and wrote two pages which also relates to my main topic. I also edited a few pages such as Copyright Infringement where I added two pages of content and edited random pages and organized the content within. I also added two recent news articles related to our topic of discussion from websites on the Current News (2) page. Top

**For the Future**
I think this is a great way to get people to start writing and sharing their ideas with their peers on a private space like the one we are on right now or even on Wikipedia. It is a great way to pull people onto the field and write about something they know. I think after writing in wikispace, students will feel more confident and comfortable about writing and sharing their knowledge with others and not feel inferior about the quality of their writing.

Firstly, I think for starters, there should be a wiki guideline where they outline all the possible tricks to organize the layout of the content, like how to add table of content, add .gif images, text wrap codes available without having to search on Google or wait until someone posts it up. Secondly, as soon as a new page is created, it should automatically be linked and allocated to the ‘Table of Contents’ page without having the user to do it themselves. I ran into many problems when I was choosing a topic to write about. When I browsed through the table of content and noticed that my topic wasn’t taken, I added it as a new page and then realized that it was taken by someone else but not listed. Students usually forget to link their pages so they are visible to others which create problems for the rest of the students who are trying to choose a topic.

Overall, I think students will enjoy using the wikispace because it allows users to have a nickname and be anonymous. No one will know who you are and what you have posted. Students will feel that they are contributing to the community but not be criticized if they made minor mistakes. The best part is, in this community, people corrects the mistakes and moves onto other articles. The assignment is a great way to make a lot of people start contributing to wiki because it is a great way to build and collaborate in a huge virtual community. I think this assignment will free a lot of people from the fear of sharing their opinions and knowledge since the work is not only for the professor to look at but also for the whole class to look at.

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