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Running head: WIKI IN EDUCATION: ADDRESSING DIVERSITY

Wiki In Education: Addressing Cultural Diversity

Richard Joffray

Argosy University

E6900-Cultural Diversity

Dr. Edmonds-Kuehn

June 19, 2007


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Wiki In Education: Addressing Cultural Diversity

In this new digital age of communication, the Internet has become a common playing

field for learning and exploration of most students today. In order to get the attention of most

students, we as educators must speak the same digital language (Prensky 2001) as our students.

Because information on the Internet is accessed the same from almost anywhere in the world,

addressing cultural diversity while integrating this digital language and organization into our

curriculum has become of utmost importance in order to assure that students understand and can

filter the vast amount information available to them. One platform that is playing an integral role

in bringing digital communities of the new age learners together to collaborate on a quest for knowledge is the use of a wiki. This paper will show how using a wiki in the classroom can

address five dimensions of multicultural education (Banks, 2004b) and provide better ownership

by students of their own knowledge.

Wikipedia (2006) states that "a wiki is a website that allows visitors to add, remove, and

edit content. A collaborative technology for organizing information on Web sites, the first wiki

(WikiWikiWeb) was developed by Ward Cunningham in the mid-1990s. Wikis allow for linking

among any number of pages. This ease of interaction and operation makes a wiki an effective

tool for mass collaborative authoring. Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia, is probably the best-

known wiki."

In exploring a model for a multicultural class it becomes apparent that the very nature of

a wiki is congruent with James Banks (2006) dimensions of multicultural education. They are:

content integration, the knowledge construction process, prejudice reduction, an equity

pedagogy, and an empowering school culture and social structure (Banks, 2006). Technical


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structures and paradigm of the wiki methodology lend it to addressing these issues in an

economical fashion.

An Equity Pedagogy

This dimension of a multicultural class fits perfectly in the structure of a wiki. The fact

that most teachers will have to modify their approach to teaching should spark new energy to old

methods and inspire students to view teachers in a new role as a facilitator rather that an

instructor. A wiki format as a central repository for students to put their knowledge and allows

for many different racial, cultural, and social-class groups to collaborate on the same project and

foster teamwork while still allowing each student to implement their knowledge in various ways.Content Integration

First and foremost part of a knowledge structure is its content. A wiki can provide a

teacher with the ability to quickly show expectations by example and integrate key concepts and

principles without much technical savvy. The ability to quickly outline a structure to guide

students through a complex principle can be a stimulus for students to reflect using their own

learning experiences. Every user of the wiki system can edit, view, contribute, comment, and

message each other in private conversation. Teachers can show and teach the rules of a wiki

simply by the creation of the wiki content itself. Students can then view the means in which the

teacher was able to create that web content and quickly learn how to express and organize

themselves in a like manner.

To illustrate this idea let us use a simple outline structure for this paper and write it in

some simple wiki markup syntax.


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Figure 1. A sample of wiki markup syntax

This markup would produce this in a wiki:

Figure 2. HTML Output from wiki markup syntax

Each of the various markup rules such as the equal symbols indicating the heading level make it

easy for teachers to by-pass technology and create organized content quickly.

Knowledge Construction Process

In a wiki the knowledge construction process is viewable by anyone in the system by

simply looking at the history of each and every edit. Every page or link in the wiki system

allows for a discussion (see Figure 3) in the tab in the upper tab. This leads to the ability for

every student to have access to the process in the building of that page. Teachers can comment

in discussion area and contribute to the main content areas, which further separates opinion from

factual knowledge and cultural characteristics ( Myrdal, 1969) leaving behind evidence of

cultural differences as well as similarities.


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Figure 3. Discussion area provides a forum for feedback and evaluation.

Prejudice Reduction

Students that are participating in a wiki can be allowed to contribute to knowledge

equally using more democratic attitudes and values. This approach to learning inevitably exposes

students to the wider variety of ethnic and cultural backgrounds of their fellow students resulting

in reduced prejudice. According to Allport (1954), prejudice would be reduced if interactive

contact situations have the following characteristics:

They are cooperative rather than competitive:

This is the very nature of the wiki structure. Working together in a collaborative

fashion is exactly what has produced Wikipedia.com

The individuals experience equal status:

All users on a wiki have the same access to edit, comment, and discuss any article

on the wiki that has been deemed editable. Some wikis reserve some of the

editing abilities for only administrators of the wiki or special groups. Setting up a

special group that only teachers belong to could use this idea.

The individuals have shared goals:

In the constructs of a wiki, students can concentrate on shared goals of creating a

larger body of knowledge together, rather than each student out there on their

own. Teachers interacting with the students can then guide them to that same goal


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by contributing structural elements to the wiki and by contributing to each page in

the discussion area.

Authorities such as parents, the principal, and the teacher sanction the contact:

Wiki content is usually open to the public on the Internet. This allows opportunity

for administrators, other teachers, and parents to be part of the processes as well.

The ability for students to attain recognition for their contributions from a larger

group than just the classroom can help foster a community rather than separate

groups.

An Empowering School Culture and Social Structure

A teacher embracing a wiki collaboration for a classroom environment is forced to

restructure curriculum in a manner that lends itself to forming a social structure of its own brings

diverse cultural differences to a common place while fostering education toward a common goal.

If multiple classrooms embrace the wiki concept, then an even larger culture can develop and

support the idea that we can all work together with knowledge of each others differences toward

a common end.

Figure 4. A wiki syntax comparison chart


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References

Banks, James A. (2006). Cultural Diversity and Education: Foundations, curriculum, and

teaching (5th ed.). Boston, New York: Pearson Inc..

Lamb, Brian (2004) Wide Open Spaces: Wikis, Ready or Not. EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 39, no.

5 (September/October 2004): 3648.

McLoughlin, Catherine (1999) Culturally responsive technology use: developing an on-line

community of learners British Journal of Educational Technology 30 (3), 231243.

Prensky, Marc (2001) Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, Part I and Part II. On the Horizon

NCB University Press, Vol 9 No. 6. (December 2001)Myrdal, G (1969) Objectivity in Social Research . Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.

Allport, G. W. (1954) The Nature of Pejudice. Cambridge, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Wiki. (2002, December 16). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved June 19, 2007,

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki

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