Sakai Wiki
Social opportunity is important in motivating people to learn (National Research Council, 2000, p. 61). I used the Sakai Wiki to create a "cool tool" assignment in which I have the students (1) identify the tool they consider most useful and (2) write an essay explaining why they think it's cool. Through the Wiki, students explore each other's tools and make discoveries richer than anything I could design on my own. The Sakai Wiki addresses Romiszowski's (2005, p. 337) criticism that in spite of what is known about creating knowledge building environments, IMS vendors have done little to build these kinds of cooperative learning protocols into their products.
Wiki Usability
Once you get used to it, the Sakai Wiki works really well. The problem is that at first, however, it is not clear how to create a new page in the Wiki. I finally figured out how to add pages to the wiki: you must first create a link to your new (nonexistent) page, then you follow the link to that page, and then you can edit it.
To help keep my students from stumbling over this, I wrote a start page for my wiki that tells the students how to create a new page in it. Here is how I worded my start page:
Welcome to the Cool Tool Wiki!
This is the Wiki in which you will complete your Cool Tool assignment. In this Wiki, we want you to write a message in which you share with your fellow classmates the coolest tool you discovered while taking this course. On the page that you create in this Wiki, tell us the Web address of your cool tool, and describe the reasons why you think this tool is cool.
In addition to creating new pages, the Wiki enables you to modify or add to submissions made by your classmates. If you have more information about a tool submitted by one of your classmates, for example, you can select the option to edit that page and add your own thoughts. Through this process of having every member of this course contributing to the Wiki, we develop a shared knowledge base of cool tools and best practices for using them.
Your grade on this assignment will be based on your contributions to the Wiki, the quality of your tool, and the reason you selected it.
When you go to create your page in this Wiki, you will discover that there is no "new page" option. In order to create a new page in the Sakai Wiki, you must create a link pointing to the page you plan to create. Let's handle that by having each class member create a link to their cool tool page by adding your link to the following list. For instructions, refer to the help tips you will get on the right side of the page when you click the Edit option to edit the page. To help get you started, I will create an entry for Dreamweaver. Go there to see how I created it.
Wiki Breadcrumbs
I like how the Wiki has breadcrumbs for you to crawl back to pages you visited.
Sakai's Wiki Engine
According to the help file, "Wiki uses the Radeox engine and hence has the same markup as mainstream wiki tool like SnipSnap. It has been implemented in such a way as to allow Radeox based wiki macros to be used. (eg Radeox RSS Aggregator). Wiki is designed and developed at the Centre for Applied Research into Educational Technology (CARET) at Cambridge University."
References
National Research Council. (2000). How People Learn (expanded edition edited by J.D. Bransford, A.L. Brown, and R.R. Cocking). Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
Romiszowski, A.J. (2005). Online Learning: Are We on the Right Track? In G. Kearsley (Ed.), Online Learning: Personal Reflections on the Transformation of Education (pp. 321-349). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications.
