Wiki Woes and Collaborative Dissertations

Okay, so I’m planning on doing something with Wikis for my “Geek of the Day” presentation and (although Moxley, Meehan, Loudermilk, and Hern’s examples definitely showed me what was out there) I found sites like writingwiki.org and teachingwiki.org to be rather clunky and confusing. It appears that Moxley designed these two sites for USF students (fine and dandy), but how do I create something similar for my students that looks a hell of a lot better and is easier to navigate? Wikispaces.com appears to be the most straightforward of the bunch, and (at least from a design standpoint) the user has a lot of options to make the various pages look somewhat interesting. Even so, it seems like most of the Wiki sites I’ve been exposed to follow the same stringent design format…is there a reason for this? Or am I just not familiar enough with the possibilities of these web-based programs/editors?

Another brief aside on collaboration…last semester in Dr. Grutsch McKinney’s ENG 601 class we talked briefly about collaborative dissertations and whether or not that notion of singular authorship (i.e. of doing one’s own work) was becoming somewhat outdated considering what we know about knowledge being socially constructed and the emphasis we place as instructors on collaboration. Since many of you weren’t in that class with me (aside from Carolyn), I was just wondering your take on the subject? Should institutions of higher education allow the option for culminating projects (such as theses and dissertations) to be co-written? Personally, my initial reaction is yes, particularly if in our classrooms we exalt the benefits of writing with others (and thus might appear hypocritical if don’t partake in such activities ourselves), but I’m also reluctant considering the prevailing views of the academy where individual scholarship is seen with less suspicion than collaborative work (the subtext being you were either too lazy or too incompetent to complete the article, thesis, dissertation, or whatever on your own). Thoughts?

Facebook Cheating

Here's an interesting article I came across through CNN about a student who used Facebook to create a study group (a collaborative community) and the professor said that it was cheating. Brings to mind interesting thoughts on collaboration, authorship, and socially constructed knowledge. Enjoy.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/03/19/facebook.cheating.ap/index.html?iref=newssearch

Trials and Tribulations with Collaboration

Collaboration is one of those pedagogical issues I seem to struggle with every semester (and by struggle, I mean trying to effectively incorporate it into the classroom). When I first began teaching at the college level in the spring of ‘05, I had absolutely no collaborative writing assignments (aside from perhaps the occasional in-class writing exercise where all of the students would brainstorm ideas for paper topics). I think my reluctance stemmed from my own undergraduate experiences where I was left to do all of the writing because a). I was perceived by my group members to be a fairly decent writer and b). I didn’t want my grade to suffer because of a lazy few. Now, as an instructor and having realized through my studies that knowledge is constructed through the “culmination of a multitude of social forces that push on individuals, that define who we are, what we think is possible, and who we want to be” (Moxley / Meehan), I understand the necessity for collaborative work…but I just can’t seem to completely cross over the threshold. This could be because, as Moxley and Meehan note, that there is a long engrained notion of writing as the undertaking of one individual, locked away in a room somewhere, toiling away (my creative writing background certainly affirms this perception/relationship of the artist and their work).

Last semester I changed my multi-genre paper to a “collaborative” piece, but saying the final product was collaboratively written by the students is somewhat misleading. A more accurate moniker would be a paper that was “compiled.” Basically, each student was responsible for two separate genres (5 – 6 pages combined), then they had to put all of their genres together (in some sort of concise and logical order) and turn in one 15 – 18 page paper; but (in most cases) the genres were not written or designed by all the students working together – it was more like fitting puzzle pieces together. I think my reasoning for this approach was because I was unsure of how to adequately assess such work. Obviously the entire piece should be given a grade, but what about the individual efforts of students? Putting them in charge of their own genres so I could specifically see who did what seemed like the best solution, but after reading Moxley and Meehan I’m not so sure.

Teaching with Technology Haiku

Teaching with laptops,
a student has a flash drive
with nothing on it.

Krause Version 1.0 and 2.0

I thought Steven D. Krause’s article, “Where Do I List This on My CV? Considering the Values of Self-Published Websites,” to be rather intriguing. He makes a convincing argument for all journals and scholarly periodicals to move toward a digital form, allowing the author to make certain additions and revisions as necessary. However, I wonder if any changes (no matter how minute) would need approval from the editors of the publication...? It seems that such a practice might be rather time-consuming, though not necessarily costly in terms of “updating” pages. If this method of editor approval is in fact unreasonable, then I can definitely understand Krause’s point about having a self-published scholarly website with updated versions of articles, reviews, presentations, etc. (though linking back to the original and giving proper credit/citation to the journal where the work first appeared). Also, the “New Examples” of self-published sites (such as wikis, blogs, and content management sites) were quite interesting. I am planning on focusing on wikis as my “Geek of the Day” presentation and to see that there are valid educational ways of using such a medium (with things like online textbooks) that also utilize an interface students already have a rapport with (yes, that dreaded wikipedia), is rather appealing. Speaking of which, does anybody know of any sites (besides perhaps wikinotes) that involves wikis and education?

Krause assertions about blogs as more of an invention device that eventually leads to either scholarship or Scholarship also rings true for me. I feel that any number of these blog postings could yield some sort of germinal ideas for a seminar paper or article. More importantly though, the blog enables me to retrace my steps, my progression, and see possible links that might not be as apparent if I was simply taking notes in a word processor or notebook (not to mention the intellectual community that the blog creates by linking to everyone else’s pages). Good stuff.

Tenure and Promotion

The notion of tenure and promotion has been a concern of mine as of late. I’m not sure if it’s because my brother (a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at Iowa) recently secured a tenure-track position at Cal-State Sacramento, or because I feel that steady pull of the years slowly slinking by to when I will need to worry about “selling myself” to some school (a thought that, for some reason, makes me feel incredibly dirty), but I’m jittery as hell. It definitely seems that those with Ph.D.’s in Rhetoric and Composition who specialize in some form of technology (whether it is computer mediated instruction, writing and technology curriculum development, multimodal composition, etc.) are in fact labeled as a “hot commodities” (at least that’s the perception I get from glancing at sites like Higheredjobs.com). If this is the case, then I fear that I will not do well in my search for a college teaching gig. Aside from this class and the ENG 605 I took my first semester of coursework, my experience with technology and teaching is rather limited (a veritable hodge-podge of hits and misses, trials and errors, and mostly informal training). My plans for a dissertation, apparently the factor by which most candidates are labeled, will most likely not have technology as its primary focus. I also have no publications in the field of Rhetoric and Composition as of yet. Eeep…and I’m on the market in a short two to three years. But, as Krause mentions in his article, each institution has different expectations for hiring, tenure, and promotion. My goal is NOT to be at a Research I (or even a Research II) university, so perhaps the experiences I have gained (though not necessarily my focus) will provide me with some sort of an edge. Time will tell I suppose…

In-class Virtual Peer Review (bien), Out of class Virtual Peer Review (es muy mal)

I mentioned in my last post some of my previous experiences with virtual peer review and that I was perplexed as to why I had not incorporated more opportunity for such activities in my class (or outside my class). I think part of my reluctance is simply because of all those pesky technology issues that can arise. I can think of one example from this semester where an ESL student had the Chinese version of MS Word, and when she tried to open her document in class to print it off there was nothing but corrupt file error messages and strange, cryptic computer symbols where her paper should have been. (One brief aside, teaching in a desktop computer classroom usually facilitates students bringing in electronic copies of their papers anyway because they can print them off and not have to waste their own ink – the only annoying part is when they ask for a stapler). Conducting virtual peer review outside of class also makes me a little wary because I feel I would inevitably I get a slue of e-mails from students saying that they couldn’t open their partners papers, they don’t have Word (but WordPerfect), they didn’t know how to save the paper as a .rtf (even though we went over it in class, like four times), yadda-yadda-yadda. I guess, if I required virtual peer reviews that were performed in-class, I would feel like I had better control, could still answer the immediate concerns of students (rather than whenever I checked my inbox), and could mediate technical difficulties that might arise (as best as I could anyway).

Inspired by Nikki - My Experiences with Virtual Peer Review

Up until last semester (when I tutored in the Writing Center), my experience with virtual peer review was rather limited. As an instructor, I always had a few students that were absent on an in-class peer review day and (eventually) they would send me an electronic copy of their draft. It then became my job to give them some sort of critique (it never occurred to me to have the absent student to exchange papers with each other), and I would use the comment function in Microsoft Word to provide feedback, resave the document under a new name, and then e-mail it back to the student(s). I will admit that this method of providing constructive criticism seemed ideal because I didn’t necessarily have to wait until the next class period to “hand back” my comments, but it never really occurred to me to have students to either a). bring in electronic copies of their papers on a flash drive, through e-mail, etc. and have the in-class peer review take place in a virtual environment, or b). have the students exchange papers electronically and conduct peer reviews outside of class. Honestly, I am surprised that I never tried this in my classes at BSU, particularly because every semester I have taught in either a laptop or a desktop computer classroom, but also because my teaching mentor at SCSU actually had students do option A (he was actually the one that pointed out the comment function in Word to me). Interestingly enough, my wife has taken psychology classes with anywhere from 50 – 100 students enrolled and (whenever their big paper is due) the instructor places students in virtual peer review groups (option B). I’m curious what other disciplines might do (aside from just send their students to the writing center). ;-)