Pros and Cons of Wikis

As an English instructor, I have spent most of my teaching career warning students about the use of Wikipedia for their essays. This is the first time I have really thought about the fact that Wikipedia is “the most well-known open source wiki on the internet” (Lari, 2011, King and Cox, 2011, p. 121). The definition of a wiki as stated by Lari (2011) is a “web site that allows visitors to add, remove, edit and change content” (King and Cox, 2011, p. 121). So now I am forced to look at wikis in another light and objectively look at their pros and cons in regards to adult learning.

 
From a constructivist theorist’s point of view “learning is a social process and learning occurs through interactions” (Lari, 2011, King and Cox, 2011, p. 124). The best feature about wikis is that they are collaborative and can build connections between groups of students.  For adult learners, the social aspect of wikis is a place for communities of practice to develop. Communities of practice are “groups of people who share enthusiasm or interest for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact with each other” (Lari, 2011, King and Cox, 2011, p. 124). The social and collaborative aspects of wikis for adult learners are two pros for incorporating wikis in the classroom as a method for faculty to encourage learners to become more responsible for their own learning.

As for the cons of wikis, there are several. One of the biggest cons of consulting wikis for information is the fact that anyone can edit a wiki page. According to West, J. and West, M. (2009) “anyone with access, permission and a web-browser can contribute to a wiki” (p. 3). That can be a problem if the person doing the editing is not familiar with the content he/she is attempting to edit. Another con to wikis is that “a wiki represents the collective perspective of the group that uses it and therefore it has a collective bias” (Lari, 2011, King and Cox, 2011, p. 123). An instructor would then have to add additional content into the classroom discussion about the bias and possible incorrect information in the wiki that the students would be creating or consulting. Obviously, there are ways to combat both of these concerns in a course wiki; however, those would need to be addressed.

Overall, I am not convinced that wikis are something that could add to the learning experience of adult students. As stated in West, J. and West, M. (2009) “adults must see a reason and purpose for their learning in order to fully engage with the instruction” (p. 26).

References

Lari, P. (2011). The use of wikis for collaboration in higher education. . In K.P. King and T.D. Cox (Eds.), The Professor’s guide to taming technology (pp.121-133). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, Inc.

West, J. and West, M. (2009). Using wikis for online collaboration. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.