WikiConference India 2011/Submissions/How "wiki' changed Learning experience of students

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Timestamp
08:15, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
Title of the submission
How "Wiki" Changed the learning experience of Students in Science and Technology
Type of submission (workshop, tutorial, or presentation)
Presentation
Author of the submission
Aafaque R Khan
E-mail address or username (if username, please confirm email address in Special:Preferences)
aafaque.rk@gmail.com
State of your origin (Country, if you are not based in India)
Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh
Affiliation, if any (organization, company etc.)

MANIT, Bhopal , Varahmihir Insitute of Scientific Reseach and Heritage, Ujjain, Sanstha "Paryavaran", Ujjain, Astro@MANIT, Bhopal, Vision, Bhopal

Personal homepage or blog
https://www.facebook.com/aafaque.rk
Abstract (maximum 500 words)
How “wiki” changed the learning experience of Students in Science and technology!

Abstract

“Got a new college assignment/ research work/project?”… “Where can I find, what i need to know?” “What to do?”… “Wiki for it…”

Rather unconventional way to start an abstract, indeed but it is just to show the trend among the students to use wiki for online learning and referencing. Whether it be astronomy, biology, Engineering, Physics, Chemistry, or any field of science and technology, “wiki” has proved to be a trending resource for interactive learning experience of students.

The student’s opinion

In an observation and discussion on what resources that students use to refer for their academics, research and/or projects, it was interesting to find the students prefer using “wiki” rather than browsing books from the college library. Some say, “Wiki provides an interactive environment where students can learn from the basic to the advanced concept of any topic and also help in building the content of the web portal. They can post their concepts, derivations, ideas, even innovations and discuss them with other students, professors, scientist and experts that use the “wiki” in sharing their knowledge.” The references, links, images, data, equations, Methods, technologies related to any field are posted and updated continuously; the books unfortunately cannot be updated. With the increase in access to internet in India, young and motivated students searching for resources of online learning often find that wiki provides a detailed set of resources to learn as well as share and all that for free.

How and Why “wiki”?

The increasing number of Students in the field of engineering and technology over the years has boosted the use of “wiki” as a knowledge learning and sharing resource. The Paper covers on various ways in which students use the “wiki” from open resources such as Wikipedia, wikibooks, wikimapia, scholarpedia, Wikimedia, Planetmath etc. to private wiki’s for group of students sharing various online resources, notes, ideas on a single platform. The ease of making and editing, the user friendly interface, the diversity of opinions, the convergence of ideas, the rational and irrational, debates and discussions, agreements, differences and even altercations; it is all here. The freedom to express, access, edit and interact provides a cloud of knowledge, a virtual classroom, a laboratory, an university, and a amalgamation of human knowledge. Beyond the conventions of classroom, exams, questionnaires and quizzes, it allows them to seek knowledge not limited by a syllabus. It was quite amazing to find that a large number of students don’t just use these resources for passing an exam (the “Geeks” still prefer craming the text), they study to due to interest. So when they search for “Aerodynamics”, “Quantum mechanics” etc. the search is for shear hunger for knowledge. That’s the beauty of wiki, changing the face of it. Bringing knowledge of the world to just a click away… Wiki as I see it around me is changing learning experience of students around me… including me..


Track (Community/Knowledge/Outreach/Technology)
Knowledge, Outreach
Will you attend Wikiconference if your submission is not accepted?
Yes
Slides or further information (optional)