Week 10 Blog: Wikis and the Digital Divide

Wiki

When you work in a group to complete a project, it can be difficult to organize people's schedules to meet up and discuss the project, exchange ideas, and create content. With a wiki, the barriers to collaboration are much easier to overcome. When we began working on this web page project, I wasn't sure what it would be like. I was concerned that it would be hard to get people motivated to work on the project if we couldn't discuss it in person, but so far it has been pretty easy to add and edit content. Because group members can work on the page at any time that is convenient for them, we can get more work done more quickly. I'm more of a night person, so I can add content late and people who do more work in the morning or during the day can look at what I've done and give feedback. Putting together a page like this on my own would take up a lot of my time and energy, but with a small group collaborating online, I can spend some time each day on the page, but I don't have to kill myself creating content.

Digital Divide

I think this week's article made an interesting point about giving students access to computers. Availability of funds is obviously a major issue when it comes to providing students access to technology, but Swain and Pearson point out that the way technology is organized and implemented is more important than just having lots of computers. For instance, some schools have large computer labs, but school administrations choose to limit access by locking the labs before and after school, or only allowing access by appointment. Even if a school has only a few computers, providing students with supervised access continuously throughout the day can go a long way towards closing the divide and giving more students meaningful interactions with computers and the internet.