Eighth Post: Tutorial 5&6

It was yet another week of e-learning as Tutorial 5 & 6 were given to us. It was basically a continuation of the work we were given prior the holidays so that we could complete it during our break from school. What were were supposed to do was to create our own wiki entry, as a class, on the topic of "Discuss the ethics of using the internet to advocate issues related to homosexuality".

For the class, it was an important start of something new that we have never done before. We had worked on our own independent research topic's wiki with other people who were also doing the same topic but we had never come together as a class for a project such as this. As such, it was a real significant learning experience as we were able to interact with each other in various ways (e.g. volunteering for the different parts to be done) in order to proceed with the task.

As an individual contributor, I have learnt that definitely no one can complete such a major task on his own and it is with cooperation with others that our research will be able to be completed. As such, we managed to help each other by posting and editing the different additions by others so as to make the entries more meaningful and relevant. Also, it is important that we, as individuals, be responsible for our own sections as that would be the only way that the task would be able to completed on the whole, with the contribution from others as well. That is why our own small individual contributions would add up to be a great one in the end.

The most challenging part of the project was to wait for the entries of my classmates so as to ensure that they managed to complete what they had to do. It was not so much of impatience but rather worry on whether they would be able to source for the required information. But as time passed, more and more began to add in their input and that rather dulled my worries and made me feel more confident that we would be able to complete it.

For any other class who want to make their own wiki project, it is important that they sit down as a whole and discuss the important issues before hand such as methods of contact, different sections to be done by different people and such. That way, that will solve any communication barriers they might face during the project as they would be able to contact each other for help.

Would I use wiki for research in my own diplomas? Definitely. Like any other search facility, wiki does provide alot of information especially since it is done by the public, for the public and many others would correct any errors they find from the entries from others, making it a somewhat "trusty" source for research. However, wiki alone would not be enough as reference to other articles and materials from different search facilities would enhance the researching.