Thursday, August 13, 2009

Wiki Part Two

Well after setting up mine so easily I thought I better investigate this phenomenon a bit more and I found....
Ward Cunningham first started developing the first site to be known as a ‘wiki’ in 1994 and put it online in early 1995. He originally called it ‘Wiki Wiki Web’ because he had been in Hawaii and had heard airport staff referring people to the ‘Wiki Wiki’ shuttle. ‘Wiki Wiki’ meaning quick or fast in Hawaiian.

The word ‘wiki’ can also be expanded to ‘what I know is’.

Further investigation led me to making the link between a ‘wiki’ which allows many users to edit a page or topic (working collaboratively) to Lev Vygotsky who believed that children learn through shared problem solving experiences with someone else. How remarkable that a child theorist from the early part of the century when computer technology didn’t really exist can still be used to assist our teaching strategies. Jerome Bruner can also be referred to here in reference to ‘wiki’s’ as he claims that learning should be participatory, proactive, communal and collaborative.

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/wiki

http://starsfolk.khi.is/solrunb/vgotsky.htm

http://au.geocities.com/vanunoo/humannature/bruner.html

Brady, L. And Kennedy, K. (2009). Celebrating Student Achievement: Assessment and Reporting. Frenchs Forest, NSW, Australia: Pearson Education Australia.

Brady, L. (2006). Collaborative Learning In Action. Frenchs Forest, NSW, Australia: Pearson Education Australia.

No comments:

Post a Comment