1. Andrew Rogers rogers1a@gllm.ac.uk Lecturer in Music Technology, Llandrillo Collegerogers1a@gllm.ac.uk A site maintained and updated by the music students of Llandrillo College, Rhos-on-Sea Sharing Resources Using a Wiki

2. The Problem Students are adept at surfing the web for research but spend a lot of their time in search engines or on irrelevant sites. Often students will eventually find the same set of sites. This wastes a lot of time, it would be better for students to be able to work collaboratively to find useful sites then share them with each other.

3. The Solution rhosmusic.wikia.com As their tutor I have set up a Wikia site for the students to use. This allows students to create pages on relevant topics, add links to sources of information and review the links. It also lets me give the students any useful links that I find and want to direct them to. It has become the starting point for students when they want to write an assignment. “I used it to help with one of my assignments, in which we had to create a podcast and I felt the wiki made it much easier to find information” Ryan Bebbington, BTEC Music Student

4. What is Wikia? A wiki is a site that lets anyone create pages, links and edit information easily. They are excellent for collaborative projects and have an intuitive and easy to use interface. Wikia is a site that lets anyone create and edit their own wiki site for free, created by the founder of Wikipedia. Wikia The only drawback is that it is financed through advertising. Given the success of the project so far I will be seeking funding to host one without the adverts in the near future.

5. How to Edit a Page On each page is an edit button. Clicking it opens up the page in an easy to use editor. From here students can add links, upload pictures and embed YouTube videos into the site. The students only needed a short introduction to the editing page before they were able to use it confidently.

6. A number of modules require students to find information on a particular aspect of a topic. Many topics are far too broad to cover all angles in a traditional teaching manner. An overview is given in class then each student is given an item to research and add the links that they find to the wiki. Uses in the Classroom 1. Researching as a Group In the “Music from Around the World” module the students were able to share their research links then use these to help in their assignments.Music from Around the World All students then have instant access to each others research. The next slide shows how this is set up step by step.

7. Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a Wiki Category 1. The contents section before the link is made, the yellow links go to pages already created. Clicking the “Edit” link opens up the section in the editor. 2. Creating a link to a page that doesn’t yet exist will make a red link appear on the page 3. By clicking on the red link we can create the page. 4. The editor pops up and allows us to write a set of instructions for what should be put on the page 5. The students create more red links for each of their topics with a quick description 6. As the students create each page and save it the link turns yellow

8. Uses in the Classroom The level 3 group has a module called “The Sound and Music Industry”. The level 2 group has a module called “Exploring the Music Industry”. Both of these classes required the students to research a number of job roles from the industry so the wiki allows them to collaborate on the research. 2. Sharing Resources Between Groups I created the initial page before the class and added a number of job roles as red links (links without a page attached).the initial page The level 2 class did some research first and created the pages for each topic they looked at (the yellow links in the picture). The level 3 class then used the same site and were given a similar task. They added to the pages that the level 2 class had made and created new pages if the link to the topic was red. Both groups then used the links found by each other to create their assignments.

9. Some pagesSome pages were just cleaned up, for example the link in the picture below was put in incorrectly by a level 2 student. A level 3 student editing the page then corrected the error. Job Role Page Examples The DJ page after the 2 nd edit:DJ A lot of information and videos were added to some pages: some pages “It is an excellent way for the students to share their knowledge with each other and help each other out in every aspect of the course” Joshua Maguire, BTEC Music Student “I used it to help me get information on Concert Promoters for a magazine article assignment.” Steven Wheelhouse, BTEC Music Student

10. Uses in the Classroom The music theory page is a good example of this.music theory page Most of the links (at the time of writing) have been put in by myself. As a homework task I asked the students to follow one or two links to brush up on the topic before a class assessment. The following week most students had completed the activity. One student had added an extra link to a music theory site they knew and had written a review on it. 3. Sharing useful links with students “It helps me to get information on what I need to research. It’s a good page to help with the course and a good source of knowledge” Conor Sauer, BTEC Music Student

11. Alternatives Moodle – Moodle is excellent for sharing resources, files and links with our students. It is, however, largely a one way deal with students unable to directly contribute other than in forums. Facebook – A Facebook group would give students chance to share information but it is unstructured and so hard to navigate to useful information. Blogs – A blog is a useful tool in the classroom but does not allow the same level of collaboration as a wiki. The posts are also rarely linked to each other in an easy to navigate way. Forums – These have a similar set of problems as facebook in that they are largely unstructured.

12. The Advantages Students work together in a cooperative way They learn to evaluate what they read on the web They take ownership of the site and take pride in editing the resources Improves literacy by editing each others spelling and grammar mistakes The site constantly evolves to meet the current needs of the students It is completely free to set up and anyone with basic computer literacy skills can do it. “I have used the site to help me when I’m stuck and unable to find actual relevant information. Without it, my last assignment grade may have been lower as it was the information from a link that helped me secure a distinction.” Karl Mulgrew, BTEC Music Student

13. The Drawbacks Anyone can edit the site – As moderator I receive an email every time someone makes a change and can quickly undo that change if needed. So far I have not had to do this. – On the front page there is a request not to edit the site if the visitor is not a student. – None of the pages have search tags so will be hard to find by non- students. – If a problem arises I have the ability to lock a page or block users from making edits. Students may rely on it too heavily – Learning to search effectively is a great skill to learn. – Care has been taken in the way the site is incorporated into sessions to make sure that all students contribute. – We have site guidelines to only post links and reviews, not to write articles!

14. The Future I have gathered feedback from the students on features they would like to see in the future, these match some of my own ambitions. The two themes are: – An ad-free version of the same site – More contributions as the site naturally grows “I do not feel there is a need to improve it, unless you intend to get rid of the adverts.” Ryan Bebbington, BTEC Music Student “Advertising upcoming events and perhaps a database for students to give their skills e.g. singer, drummer etc. to help form bands.” Louise Llewellyn, Student Support “Needs maybe more contribution and a lot more information. Information to help track different assignments could help” Steven Wheelhouse, BTEC Music Student “Only time will improve” Garrin Amies, BTEC Music Student “More sections for information and if people could upload more videos and images. It would be nice if we could get rid of the adverts.” Karl Mulgrew, BTEC Music Student “This wiki page can only be beneficial and helpful, we hope that it will develop.” Paul Sinclair, BTEC Music Student