Cheah,+Angela

=Contributions:=

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =Reflections:=
 * **September 22:**
 * Comics: posted links, content, and pictures on topic
 * Graphic Novels: started introduction to graphic novels; picture and small bit of conten
 * Marshall McLuhan: added content on global village, quote from McLuhan, and picture
 * **September 27:**
 * Graphic Novels: community building- added pictures
 * Global Village: community building- added pictures and quote
 * **September 29:**
 * Manga: started post on topic- added links, picture, and content
 * **October 6:**
 * Analysis & Reflection: added first reflection
 * **November 7:**
 * Manga: community building- added links etc..
 * Shonen: community building- added links etc..
 * Comics: community building- added links etc...
 * **November 10**:
 * Bathroom Advertising: community building- added links
 * Advertising: community building- added links
 * **November 13:**
 * Analysis & Reflection: added second reflection
 * **November 14**:
 * Adbusters: created a new page and started a post for it- content, links, pictures, quotes
 * Table of Contents: community building- added a link to a page that was missing
 * Culture Jamming: added links and a new section for related links
 * **November 15:**
 * Fashion Magazines: community building- added images and links and added to Table of Contents
 * Magazines: community building- added links
 * **November 22**:
 * Propaganda and Persuasion: community building- added content and links
 * Information Overload: began topic post- added content

1. October 6
Last year I was a contributor to the CCT 205 Wikispace. I thought it was a great idea and really allowed students to collaborate and share ideas. It promoted and encouraged students to help one another. In the beginning, it was intimidating having to share your ideas with the class, but everyone was respectful. I think having previously experienced this, I should be able to contribute more and better than I did last year. I have a better grasp of how the wikispace works. I don’t have problems editing or starting new pages. Creating links and adding pictures are also very easy to do. Navigating is also easy to do. Had this been a more complex thing I probably would have had a lot of difficulty and wouldn’t have enjoyed the experience as much. I definitely have to say thank you to all the students that posted notes from chapter readings or lectures. It helped a lot when it came to doing assignments and studying for tests. Also, just by doing the posts I felt I did better in the class. It motivated me to pay attention and do the readings so I would have something to write about. I also got a better understanding of course materials. Another thing that I’ve really liked so far about the wikispace is that there’s an FAQ section. Not only does it allow students to help each other, but it did answer a few concerns I had about assignments and such. This year I hope to do a lot better by making sure I continually go on the site and contribute or community build. I also want to write quality posts and not just tidbits to fulfill a requirement. I won’t also leave it to the last minute so I will have quality contributions. The only difficulty I find I’m having this year that I didn’t have last year is the fact that I have to continually keep up with two wikispaces. It was okay doing it for one class, but having more is time consuming. It’s a great educational idea and very helpful, but I find myself busier in other things (like readings for other classes and assignments) than focusing my time on this.

I try to log onto the wikispace as often as possible. Most of the time I will edit pages that are listed in the recent changes link. Sometimes I will go through the table of contents and read any new links that have been made. From there I decide which postings could use additional information that I can contribute to. As well, if I know that I can find pictures or create links to a post I will do the edits for that page. I mainly search for pages with the least amount of content because it usually allows me to add more relevant edits to it. I also try and find related topics to what people have written about if I’m out of ideas as to what I should contribute. Whenever I log on, I check to see if my postings have been edited. I do this just to see what I had missed or if someone completely erased my work. There have been additions and edits to the postings I have made, but nothing has been in a negative way. I don’t mind people changing my work so long as it’s relevant and appropriate. I feel if I can respect you and your postings you should do the same for me. When I go to someone else’s posting I ensure that I keep as much of their original work and only add things that are necessary or nice to have. It is an iterative project so adding, editing, and re-arranging is necessary and of course going to happen. Though, I do find that more and more people are posting irrelevant and useless posts although I haven’t had any problems with people deleting or making inappropriate edits so I have no complaints about that. A lot of the times I find that the edits people make are great. How else can we learn more and cooperate as a team/class.
 * 2. November 13**

I know that copying and pasting from the CCT 333 wikispace analysis and reflection shouldn't be done, but I found that my response to the questions there also applied here. As well, there are about a million other things I desperately need to be concentrating on right now instead of paraphrasing my own work. I feel this isn't plagiarism (my own work) and should be ok to use since it does answer the questions and is written solely by me. I do appologize for doing this though, and will paraphrase if and when I find time prior to the due date.
 * 3. December 6**

My views haven’t really changed about collaborative learning through participation in the wiki. I still find it to be very useful and helpful. It’s a great way for students to connect with one another and a great place to get much needed information or help (especially with exams and assignments). For me personally, I used it for help with the first assignment and the exam. I also met people in the class and created study groups through the site. There were even topics that I had no knowledge of prior to reading it on the wikispace so it has helped to broaden my knowledge. It’s also an excellent form of communication for teachers and students alike. I also felt that I did do better this time round than before. My postings were relevant along with my community building (though I did notice I didn't do too much of it). I was also a bit better is making sure that I did postings more frequently and spread out (not leaving it to the last minute).

I also think that reinforcement on plagiarism was required (though now there’s a wonderful note posted on the home page). People were using previous years or other class postings and just copying and pasting. Paraphrasing isn’t that difficult. As well, the other people who contributed to the original post gets no credit at all. Another aspect that needs to be emphasized is irrelevant postings. I find that a load of crap is posted on the wiki. There is more useful content than nonsense, but if the post doesn’t relate to the course it shouldn’t be made at all. People view it as only about quantity and not quality so they post anything that they have mediocre knowledge about thinking their marks will be better because they have 200 posts instead of 50. People should not be upset if posts were changed or parts were deleted because they plagiarized or put irrelevant posts up. As well, if someone added a contribution to a page that was completely off topic, they shouldn’t be upset if someone deletes it (why keep blatantly obvious irrelevant information on?).

The editing tool also requires some fixing though I know we can’t really do anything about it (it’s up to the wikispace maintenance guys). But I find it difficult to make edits as errors continually happen. I can’t bold or unbold when needed, pictures are often not loading properly, embedding certain forms of media can cause problems (Flash documents) and when you save a post sometimes arrows and equal signs appear when they were never added. This is just to name a few.

I did find that the sandbox was helpful though and the links to wikihelp. I used it a few times when I forgot how to do certain things or wanted to learn how to use/do certain things.

Despite the wiki being a collaborative, and therefore shared concept, I find that it may require some form of privacy. Especially when there are loafters. It’s suppose to be collaborative where people help one another, but in many cases only a few people do actual hard work and effort while others just sit back and reap the benefits. Taking that into account I did find that the wikispace was most helpful with exams and essays. Additionally, the FAQ section was also helpful in getting not only responses and help from teachers, but student input as well.

I think for the future a different approach to the class wiki could possibly consist of group work instead of the class as a whole. Perhaps in the beginning of the year the class can be divided into groups and create their own class wiki (kind of like the group projects we did). This allows for more topics to be covered for each individual (since there’s fewer people posting on one site topics are more spread out) and people will be more likely to share their ideas instead of hiding them so they can gain all the credit. People are also forced to contribute and you can still see each other’s work/wikis.

Overall, I didn't enjoy the wiki assignment as much as I had in the past. This is just simply due to the repetitiveness of the project. I do find it to be useful and I even used it in other classes (made a site to gather people's ideas and work for study groups, exams, assignments etc...). I think what I enjoyed most was creating my own wiki because it gave me more control and I enjoyed the fact that it was "my site". There was more flexibility and not too much pressure as well as it gave us more of an idea of the potential the wiki have. We saw more aspects of it this way. I don't think that the wiki should be eliminated from courses because it is a handy tool, but perhaps less emphasis would be better.