Blog #3-Cathlena Martin and Lisa Dusenberry Wiki

Prior to reading this piece by Cathlena Martin and Lisa Dusenberry, I was somewhat familiar with wiki's already. However, prior to this course, I had never heard of one. Though, I was showed the video "Wikis in Plain English," as to which I learned the basic features of a wiki page. I learned from that youtube video that there are primarily two buttons: Edit and Save. A wiki is a webpage that can be edited at the click of a button. You simply push the edit button, type anything anywhere you would like, click save, and that easily, you added to a wiki page. From this article, I learned some new things such as, "Although there are many benefits to the wiki, I see one drawback: No one's thoughts and entries stay untouched by others" (Cathlena Martin and Lisa Dusenberry 209). I never really considered that fact. One can post something on a wiki, but that information can be seen or messed with very easily. For example, they say, "A whole essay could be deleted with the click of a button" (Cathlena Martin and Lisa Dusenberry 209). From that new information, I recognized the fact that your privacy, (or time and effort), can very quickly be re arranged, or deleted entirely, leading me to ask, "How beneficial are wiki pages really?" However, these flaws could be fixed entirely if the web browser administrators review what is posted on their wiki sites. Therefore, if unacceptable or hateful intolerant posts are put up, that person could be kicked off the server and their posts could be deleted.
According to Martin and Dusenberry, an advantage would be the fact that it's quick, easy and engaging for students. They claim, "By giving students the means to edit class pages, they are granted more agency in the development of class assignments and can actively contribute in a manner so that other students can view class work and progression" (Cathlena Martin and Lisa Dusenberry 205). However, a disadvantage, as explained earlier could be that anyone can post anything, and anyone can view wiki posts even if those posts are meant to be confidential or private. All in all, wiki pages seem to be a very beneficial idea for students in collaborating with one another, and while there are set backs (which there are for everything), they can be fixed, just as easily as they can be created.