Wiki Profile

Wiki Profile

Reflections of an Educationalist

An exercise in relationship building, the wiki profile reminded me that I am not alone in this journey of learning.  At Residential school, pockets of us met, shared and had the opportunity to connect.  Fragile and transitory, these connections are easily lost in the little moments of life. Scanning the list of wiki profiles, I was soon smiling at those names I recognised and it gave me a chance to reconnect. And to those I did not formally meet, I had an opportunity to view their profile and relate to them in perfect anonymity.

Nervous at diving into the unknown, I was pleasantly surprised to find the instructions for the wiki profile reasonably stress-free to follow.  And so with my new found knowledge, I enter the world of bloggery with a lesser fear of technology and of a cyber-connected world.

The wiki profile allows connections to develop between students. Often within the school community, students and cliques that would not otherwise interact could connect digitally. Within the confines of wiki profile, social, intellectual and cultural barriers have an opportunity to intersect.  

Additional strategies could include students contributing to the profiling questions. In a sense, this gives a sort of cross- generational insight and creates a wiki relatable to the student.

There are elements of various learning theories that could apply to the wiki profile. Constructionists’ could claim that the knowledge comes from the individual’s experience, and this would be correct. Cognitivists’ believe in - accession, filtration and down-loading of information, and this too would fit, as most certainly Connectivism would.  This shows that there is no finite line separating learning theories and that there are tasks that blur theories within tasks.