Bao,+Victoria

Analysis & Reflection for [|Victoria]


 * Significant Contributions:**

1) September 26th - started a list of examples to the graphic novels page 2) October 3rd - October 16 - added to types of movies, music, photography and blogs to the Hierarchy of Media Genre page 2) October 7th, 2006 - the vlogs page 3) October 15th - started a list of acronyms found in chat rooms 4) October 29th - contributed to game shows examples 5) November 4th - the lonelygirl15 page 6) November 19th - the paintings page 7) Ongoing - fixed typos, added links to external and internal pages, added examples to different pages


 * Analysis and Reflection:**

1) The wikispace, a collaborative learning environment, is our third project for cct300. I have had previous experience with the wikispace project in cct333 and cct205. Having previously participated in the wikispace, I know that this collaborative learning environment facilitates learning in an unconventional way. I have learned that a group collaboration can create a wealth of accurate and up-to-date information.

As opposed to other projects, the wikispace encourages creating, sharing and collaborating knowledge with your classmates. Although the wikispace is relatively easy to use, I can contribute by helping other students that are new to the wikispace. I can show other class members things I learnt from other classmates such as embedding a multimedia piece or adding a table of content. The expectation for myself within the collaborative learning environment include regularly participate in the wikispace to help reach a consensus of knowledge. I know the importance of having content up early – this leaves time for other students to read, edit, and add.

2) The posting I decide to contribute are chosen because I feel as if it is relative to the course. Other contributions were mainly for community building. For example, the lonelygirl15 phenomenon was a particular topic that I found interesting and something I thought other students would find interesting as well. I decide to change certain postings if there is the need for it. I have fixed typos, added links and added examples. I believe that adding, editing and re-arranging other people’s work help the wikispace community. Each individual has their own strengths and weaknesses – pooling our individual talent help the wikispace as a whole.

I do check the history of my own posting for alternations. There have been instances of changes but they’ve all been changes to make my posting better. I have learned things I hadn't known from some of the alternations other students have made on my contribution pages. Students are aware that there is a history and everything that is changed is recorded. Therefore, I feel as if students are altering material for the betterment of the wiki and not to abuse their power.

3) The major challenge I had to working on my wikispace was that it was difficult to maintain consistency in terms of my edits. Oftentimes, other pressing tests or projects became my first priority before the wikispace. Although I visited the wikispace and edited it often, I would only remember to because I was reminded in tutorials - I tended to place importance of projects in terms of deadlines. However, I knew the importance of not leaving the wikispace until the last minute, as that would not be effective “community building.” Another obstacle that I encountered was the wikispaces.com website going down an hour before the deadline. Because the wikispace is an online website, students are unable to continue on with their work if the server goes down. This presents problems as I am now comtemplating whether or not anything that I am writing write or edit now will be valid or disregarded.

An advantage of participating in this wikispace is that you get to learn new things every time you log on. Because you participate by reading other classmates content before you edit, you learn new material each day. Also, when individuals add content to the pages that you’ve significantly contributed to, you learn new things you may not have previously known about your topic.

I thought many things in this course worked well. The introduction of McCloud’s books was extremely interesting alternative to the traditional textbook. Also, the graphic novels assignment was one of my more interesting assignments this semester. It definitely altered my perceptions of what I thought comic books were.

I believe that adding more value to the tutorial would be beneficial to students. The tutorials are important because it keeps students up-to-date about upcoming tests, projects and assignments. However, many students fail to show. I’m not sure how adding value to tutorials can be done since we are not learning any technical skills. Possibly, the introduction of discussions each week about the online readings or current interesting/relevant topics in the news would be helpful to our learning. This would help students with some of the online readings as well as stay abreast about current issues.