1.+Summary+of+Grant's+Article

= Summary of Grant's article =

**GETTIN' WIKI WITH IT**

Lindsay Grant, in her article "'I DON'T CARE DO UR OWN PAGE!': A Case Study of Using Wikis for Collaborative Work in a UK Secondary School," believes that wikis can be "heralded as supporting more collaborative and democratic teaching and learning practices" (105). In order to do so, as teachers work towards implementing wikis into their practice, they must resolve "tensions between views of learning and knowledge creation as collaborative and learner-driven" (106). If a teacher believes that he or she is the sole source of information and that students are a vessel in which to pour knowledge, collaborative learning will not fit into his or her practice. Teachers must see the "value of collaborative learning" (106) and peer editing/feedback in order for wikis to be a useful tool.

Essentially, a wiki represents the "collective knowledge of a large group" that, hopefully, "can be greater than that of an individual" (106). In the use of wikis, "a group takes responsibility for creating its own content" (106), and in this way "wikis support a collective work" (106). In just the same way that students would show their group work on a poster in the past, a wiki can be viewed as essentially a digital poster. A benefit to this digital format is that a teacher can track each student's contributions using the "history" tab.

**KEEPING ON THE SOCIAL SIDE OF LIFE (AND LEARNING)**

Throughout most of our pre-service teacher education, many of us we were inundated with notions of how "socio-cultural and social constructivist theories...emphasize the social and collaborative nature of learning" (106), yet many teachers still do not believe that learning is an entirely social process. Wikis, then, offer a tool that can help facilitate a more collaborative, social approach to learning. When effectively used, "learners take responsibility for their own learning goals, identifying the problems and gaps in their understanding of a subject and deciding how to solve these problems" (107). Wikis can represent students' "collective cognition" (107). Teachers can track how their students "reach insights through the process of working together" (107). Ideally, the end result will represent something "that neither could have made alone, and that cannot be ascribed to any one contribution" (107).

Grant suggests that wikis give students "public audiences" (107) and she believes that students don't have "a voice unless someone listens" (107).

Grant describes the perfect scenario involving using a wiki in school: "In editing another's work, students have to reflect on the quality of that work and whether and how it could be improved, meaning they have to develop their own ideas in response to the ideas presented by previous contributors. Conversely, when a students' own work is edited, they can consider the changes as feedback on their content and quality of their work and so mutually engage in the development and presentation of ideas" (108). = =
 * (NOT) SO HAPPY TOGETHER**

Grant seemed surprised with student "actions and attitudes towards editing others' work" (109) and noted that "very few edited material on others' pages" (109).

In this study, students believed they should "Focus on [their own] work and on [their] own page rather than edit someone else's" (110). Since collaborative editing was not part of their experience, perhaps they believed it was considered cheating to edit, or giving a one up to the other person. They definitely did not have a collaborative culture, and were in fact anti-cooperative: the students felt that someone editing their work "stepped outside the boundaries" (111) and they had "trespassed on someone else's territory" (110).

Grant laments how students did not "take responsibility for their learning goals, did not review each others' work, did not identify gaps in their knowledge of a topic or find ways of making their different topics relate to each other." (112). Grant believes that because the students "did not set themselves, or perceive, a clear learning goal" they demonstrated only "shallow constructivism" (112). We believe the lack of both direction and prior collaborative practice in the classroom might have played parts in preventing the students from benefiting from the technology.

**Conclusions **
Teachers need to debate "the value of a more collaborative approach to learning and ways to organize education [to be] more conducive to collaborative practices" (113). Grant notes that "Learners have to learn how to participate and collaborate, and teachers need to play a role in facilitating this process" (113). We cannot assume that students have these skills. As a profession, we need to look at the specific skills teachers need to "explicitly encourage": "If teachers really do want to encourage students to be independent, responsible for their own learning, and collaborate with one another, then teachers themselves will have a significant role to play in modeling and facilitating these practices" (113, 114).

Grant admits, as we have also noticed, that "there is no direct causal link between technologies introduced to the classroom and the practices that follow, and the participatory promise of Web 2.0 does not itself ensure collaborative learning" (115). While web 2.0 tools may include lots of neat gadgets and gizmos, the skills around how to properly use them in an educational context need to be taught, and most of the skills themselves do not rely on Web 2.0 technology. Perhaps illuminating this concept with reluctant teachers would encourage them to find newer ways for students to demonstrate learning.

We know that students want to use technology and are more engaged in the classroom when they do use it. We know that their futures are very likely to involve the use of technological applications, so as educators we need to integrate Web 2.0 tools into schools--along with teaching the skills necessary to experience success with wikis and other web 2.0 tools.