Wiki reflection

I was a bit worried in the beginning about collaborative writing where I won't be near the others. It does take a lot of "trust" for it to work. Trust that the others will do their part. Trust that our stories will flow smoothly. Trust that we will be able to work together without much conflict.

To my surprise, the process is really smooth. It, in a way, cuts down on the time wasted. We don't have to "worry about getting a consensus," or "worry about offending people," or "coming up with a compromise where everyone is happy."

I think one of the reason why it worked is because each of us has a specific purpose or task. This is something I need to consider when I am giving similar collaborative assignments to my students.

This experience has convinced me, as a language teacher, there are benefits that I can do by using wiki in the classroom for collaborative work for students. I am already using blogs where students write about their week in Chinese. The main purpose is to give students a place where they can practice Chinese (language and typing) without worrying about being graded.

Now, with wiki, since the students already are doing collaborative work (writing dialogues), it will be a good way for them to collaborate on a dialogue. I usually would like the students to type up the dialogues after the final draft anyway, it might be good to find a way to integrate wiki into it. This will take some thinking but I am excited now.