Anwar's+Defense+of+Innovation

__**(Defense of Innovation for Multimedia Presentation)**__ **By** **Anwar Mohammad** **Walden** **University** Wiki is a website that allows creation and editing of any number of linked web pages by more than one author. It is invented in 1995 by programmer Ward Cunningham as a new way to discuss software design. It is named after a Hawaiian word wiki-wiki means quick (Bean & Hott, 2005). According to Bean & Hott (2005) several firms in US and abroad are using Wiki. However, it is not well adopted yet in academia especially K12 (Parker & Chao, 2007). Parker and Chao (2007) suggested several uses of wiki as a teaching tool. Some of those include ongoing documentation of collaborative research work, sharing thoughts and reflections, brain storming, collaborative editing, group authoring etc.
 * Wiki**
 * Introduction**

I am a high school science teacher, and I teach Chemistry and Biology. Most of the labs and projects require group work. There are two ways to complete the lab report or the project. (1) Allow the students to sit together in the class and complete the lab report or project. (2) Allow them to work from home. If they work from home on completing the lab report, the teacher will be able to spend more time on one-on-one help for learning the concepts. Besides this, a wiki is also easier to provide teacher feed back on student projects and allowing them to correct the errors to make it up to the standard. Non-member classmates may also observe the work of other groups. Another benefit is reduction of paper work.
 * Potential Use and benefit in K12**

The other two innovations that I have surveyed are classroom performance system (CPS) and Smart board, the interactive white board. Both these innovations are valuable additions to K12 education. However, both of these inventions involve funding, where as wiki doesn’t. Wiki needs only a computer and internet. Most of the schools (K12) inUSAhave computer labs or computers or laptops in the class as well as internet. There is no need of any extra investment. There are several free wiki hosting sites available for K12. My study, as well as practical experience, shows that wiki is easy, collaborative, quick and inexpensive tool that has not been well adopted in K12 yet, even though it is very well adopted outside K12 and spreading knowledge. I chose wiki with an intention to learn more and be a part of wiki spread and diffusion in K12 education.
 * Wiki verses CPS and Smart Board**

Wikipedia can be taken as one of the best examples, of diffusion of wiki, with 90,000 active contributors, 19 million articles, with editions in 282 languages and 365 million readers (Wikipedia, 2011). Another study by Bean and Hott (2005) suggests that wiki is widely used in corporate sector. Where as another study by Parker and Chao (2007) suggests that wiki is still not well diffused in K12 education, however its use has been found in higher education.
 * Diffusion studies of Wiki**

CPS and Smart Board are valuable additions to K12 learning. However, Wiki is less expensive than both or rather inexpensive because almost every school has computers and internet; no further investment is needed. I chose wiki with an intention to learn more and be a part of wiki spread and its diffusion in K12 education.
 * Conclusion**

Bean & Hott (2005). Wiki: A Speedy New Tool to Manage Projects, //The Journal of Corporate Accounting and Finance.// July/August 2005 Retrieved Sep, 2011 from [] Parker & Chao (2007), Wiki as a teaching tool, //Interdisciplinary Journal of Knowledge and Learning Objects// Vol 3.p57-72 Wikipedia (2011), [|www.Wikipedia.org]. Retrieved September 2011 from []
 * References**