The delights and frustrations of using a wiki

Abstract

The delights and frustrations experienced when trying to incorporate the use of a wiki social media site with first year undergraduate childhood study students are reported. Findings are taken from two undergraduate student focus groups; one semi- structured interview with a PhD student who contributed to the maintenance and development of the wiki; the actual wiki site and use of wiki resources in assessments and the lecturer’s weekly wiki diary of events from October 2015 to April 2016. The rationale behind the introduction of the wiki was twofold; firstly to inspire students to engage in student peer-learning and start writing in an academic undergraduate format and secondly to facilitate a PhD student’s developmental teaching beyond the dissertation phase from PhD student to scholar. Although these aims were achieved to a degree they were reached in unexpected ways, a ‘community of practice’ (Laver and Wenger, 1991) was evident but more so within the actual seminar session space rather than within an online community capacity