Wiki Assignment

This week my students have been working on creating a wiki as part of their course in introductory macroeconomics. I was keen to experiment in using the open-source Moodle course and to encourage them to write collaboratively rather than each submits a separate assignment.

The Moodle VLE course does have a wiki module and colleagues interested in using this might want to consult the discussion forums on using wikis available from the Moodle web site

The task this week was to produce a wiki on the economics of recession and the results have been very encouraging, especially at a time of the year when students are tired and eagerly anticipating half term! They have started to learn some of the ‘wiki mark-up language’ and have been able to engage in some peer review of submitted articles. They have appreciated how a well-judged and succinct paragraph can add much to the body of work and in supplementing the contributions of others by adding in extra content, often in the form of external web links or current examples.

I offer a large hat tip to my colleague Paul Bridges who has also been developing a wiki with his AS students at another school using the exchange rate mechanism as the stimulus for research and discussion. Paul wrote the following advice notes for his students and this has been of great help in prodding my own students to make considered and independently-written contributions.

Your contribution could be factual, it could be that you give examples to add to someone else’s theory or it could be some analysis. The students gaining the highest levels will be those that link some theory, together with real evidence to support their analysis, which should lead them to a valid opinion. After every contribution you must earn yourself credit by putting your initials in brackets, like so (GBR). If you make several contributions across the wiki you should credit yourself several times.

You are welcome to use other sources of information, however if you quote verbatim you must use “quotation marks” and you must acknowledge your sources by giving a web address or author and publication. If you are only paraphrasing you don’t need to use quotes, but you still need to credit the author or website. Failure to do this will result in your work being removed for plagiarism. To get high marks you will need to post your own thoughts, not just cut and paste other people’s (note: it is easy to cross-reference online to check if something is copied).

I will certainly be using the wiki format for future assignments and also in revision classes later on in the year. This BBC Newsnight feature by Paul Mason first broadcast in November 2007 looks at the principals and spirit behind Wikinomics and includes an interview with the author of a book of the same name – Don Tapscott.