Our Wiki Experiment at the EAC
When possible, we practice course linking at the East Asia Center (EAC) in order to encourage a more holistic understanding of our studies, or as Austin has put it, to help ‘cultivate interdisciplinary synthesis’. With our interactive webpublishing course (IWP), this becomes a no-brainer.
One of the feature courses being offered at the EAC this semester is called Japan: Behind the Mask, which allows learners to critically examine the complex dimensions of Japanese society and culture, most of which remain hidden from the casual observer. The teacher, Preston, has kindly given me his syllabus so that I can remind students in IWP to post their postition papers and thoughts about their readings for the course. Furthermore, Preston has suggested that students work collaboratively to create a list of vocabulary words necessary for an in-depth study of Japanese culture.
I don’t know if it was John’s recent post on the wikipedia or if it was just a dream, but the idea of experimenting with a wiki at the EAC has been on my mind recently. It was James‘ posting of a ‘wiki lesson plan’, however, that ultimately inspired me to act. A quick Google search on ‘free wiki software’ brought up Seed Wiki (via EBN via Disruptive Technology). It took me a mere five minutes to sign up and start a wiki, which I’ve initially called Japan: Behind the Mask - an evolving lexicon. I’m very interested in seeing what our students will do with this. Will they change the title? How many words will they add? Will they create new pages with content to meet their needs as a learning community? How will the presence of a wiki change the way students publish on their own sites? Will other people not enrolled in the class participate?
Another thought I had: how might Manila be used to create a wiki? I couldn’t come up with any good ideas, other than starting a new blog and giving all who sign up as members a ‘managing editor’ status. Anybody have thoughts on this?
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