FALL/WINTER 2007
Where there's a wiki, there's a way
It sounds like something more suited to a Hawaiian beach than a college physics course. But Erica Carlson, an assistant professor of physics, has made her classroom a perfect home for the wiki.
“I was taught from this textbook. I know there are confusing parts. But I’ve also taught the course so many times that I can’t really identify where students are getting stuck anymore,” Carlson says of the course, Thermal and Statistical Physics (PHYS 416).
A wiki is different from a blog or online bulletin board because the content itself can be edited, reorganized, and linked to and from. Carlson felt that the wiki would be a good way for students to collaborate on filling in details and finding solutions to the specific areas where they were getting stuck. Students can post explanations of chapters in their own words, which can help others who also have trouble understanding that part of the text. If a classmate has something to add, like another explanation or example, they can edit the wiki page to include this information.
Students in the course use a password to edit the wiki, and they’re on the honor system. “You have to be able to trust the students. We have only one rule — be respectful,” she says. While anyone can read the wiki, the password allows her to control and see who posts to the wiki. So far, she hasn’t had any problems.
“My rule is that technology has to help rather than distract,” she says. “If it’s aimed right and done right, it has the power to improve things in ways that are hard for us to imagine. We used to use slide rules. Now we use computers,” she says.
While she’s not sure the wiki will be quite as revolutionary as the calculator, it gives her students a level of control and input into their educational experience that both teacher and student can benefit from.
“Within a few years, maybe this document can become a course supplement — put together by the students over several years and addressing student concerns in ways they find helpful,” she says. 
Glossary
Blog (n): A Web-based diary. Readers can post
comments but cannot edit what is already posted.
Podcast (n): A Web-based audio broadcast accessed by subscription over the Internet.
Wiki (n): A page that users can both contribute to as well as edit, add links to, and reorganize.