Using a Wiki to Maintain Your Course Site

Most universities employ large scale computer environments, often referred to as course manage systems (CMS), as their virtual presence. We use Felix, and more recently, Moodle for this purpose. In addition, we use a number of web pages linked together to present Fielding to the public.

While using this approach offers a great deal, it can also be limiting. For example, whenever I want to change so much as a typo in a course description, I have to impose upon someone to make the correction because I don’t have access to that part of our Fielding site.

One way to address this is to use one of the many free, easy to use Web 2.0 tools to create your course presence. For example, I use a wiki offered through Google Sites as the home for my Psych 767 course. The official Fielding site contains a short description of my course, but then links to the course site I have set up. This allows me to do the following:

• edit my course site whenever and however I need to
• embed video, animation and anything else I might want to use into my course site
• create a site that students can easily link their sites to, so that they can review each others' work
  
• model for my students the use of software that they themselves can use outside and beyond Fielding

Remember - Our students will not have access to Felix or our Moodle site after graduation. But they will have access to Google Sites. If one of our goals at Fielding is to help students maintain their professional practice after graduation, then modeling how to maintain a professional web presence can be very helpful to them.

Feel free to visit my Psych 767 wiki site.