Learn from wiki task

I learned about two new things from the wiki task: wiki server program and Marshal Mcluhan’s insights.

I. wiki server program
A wiki allows a visitor to logon to the "wikified" website to edit the content of a site from their own computer. Visitors can also create new content and also change the organization of existing content. Basically, a wiki website operates on a principle of collaborative trust (Jennings, 2006). If someone doesn’t want his/her writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, they won't submit it on wiki. Instead people can turn to blogs for publishing their ideas and opinions on the Internet. As a collaborative online learning and communication platform, wiki empowers peers to monitor and review the progress and development of the task. Although some people are worrying about the absence of academic authority and the quality of writing produced by the visitor editing method, the group authoring process, in order to resolve controversies, can reduce individual bias to real factual resource. Nevertheless the group authoring process still will leave plenty of scope for personal commentary. Overall the wiki task will be a good tool for learning and thinking.

When our team worked on the wiki task, we worked on figuring out how to use the wiki service and how we should cooperate to complete the four McLuhan’s Tetrad questions. We cared more about what was written on our wiki but had too little time for communication. As a result, we didn’t have enough time to contribute something from each other’s field of specialty to extend the breadth and depth of the subjects on the wiki site.

II. Marshal Mcluhan’s insights
Some of McLuhan’s ideas provided with me an opportunity to understand the concepts about technology and education. The most famous of McLuhan's statements was “the medium is the message”. It is also one of his best-known and least-understood insights. It means that the mere use of a medium has a greater impact on society than does any particular way in which that medium is used (Levinson, 1999). Then, is the content unimportant? From McLuhan’s points, there is no medium without content. Could you imagine a television without programs? If it is without programs, then television loses its medium role already. McLuhan's "tetrad" -- or "four laws of media" -- might help give us a better view of the road we've traveled, and where we're going (Levinson, 1999). The four questions can help us measure any medium and its impact on education.

From the horizon report (2006), we got to know emerging technologies and what will likely have an impact on teaching or learning. The technologies which will be employed in future learning environments could eventually change teaching contents, methods and techniques within the learning process. For instance, context-aware technology will retrieve collaborative work among people in shared physical locations, and it will bring about the possibility of gathering children from different grades in one room directed by one teacher in one specific location (Adams, 2006). This technology will resolve the problems such as the high demand for more teachers and more schools.

[ Reference ]

Adams, C. (2006). Context-Aware Environments and Devices. Available: URL http://lstpresentation.jot.com/TetradQuestions

Jennings, E. (2006). Web Services Definitions – wiki. Available: URL
http://searchwebservices.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid26_gci943070,00.html

Levinson, P. (1999). Millennial McLuhan: Clues for Deciphering the Digital Age. The Chronicle Review. Available: URL http://chronicle.com/weekly/v46/i08/08b01001.htm

The Horizon Report (2006). The New Media Consortium & EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative.