Keynote speaker hails the collaborative power of wikis
For Angela Beesley, wikis are ideal tools in education since they enable people to ‘work together and share ideas.’ Chair of the Wikimedia Foundation and a champion for the power of wikis in encouraging collaboration in a range of contexts, she says wikis allow ‘a knowledge base to be built up’ and can support the development of collaborative skills in students through the editing of one another’s work. It is the support of these skills and the development of this collaborative network that are the essence of the wiki, she suggests.
‘Wikis track group history through the wiki edit history,’ she explains. ‘It’s this history that allows the specifics of who has contributed what element of a joint work to be viewed which in turn is very important for teacher assessment. Wikis encourage the sharing of information in almost any setting.’ It’s also these elements of a wiki, she explains, which answer the charges of those who question the provenance of information delivered through a wiki.
Looking forward to next week’s Jisc’s conference at which she is a keynote speaker, she hopes to tap into the innovative and collaborative networks on display there: ‘I’m looking forward to learning more about the innovative ways in which people are using ICT. I think wikis can help with some of the challenges people face in education, and I’m looking forward to speaking with more people about that. The Jisc conference has some interesting sessions on how people are building communities using social networking and Web 2.0 tools. I’m very much looking forward to hearing more about this.’
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With conference places now filled and registration closed, conference organisers are stressing that those unable to attend the conference in person will be able to follow the conference online through a number of interactive web activities, including live video streaming of keynote sessions, ‘micro-blogging’ (through Twitter), podcasts of interviews and sessions, and the sharing of conference images on Flickr.
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