Wiki Project Assessment Memo (PAM): DigitalTools4DigitalWriters.pbwiki.com

For UNLV’s English 406B, Electronic Documents, my assignment was to create a wiki entry and participate in a class created, group wiki at http://DigitalTools4DigitalWriters.pbwiki.com/. The subject I chose for my entry was tags, and as there are multiple kinds of tags, my page contained multiple definitions. Tags include HTML tags, metadata tags, data tags, and alternative (Alt) tags. In addition to defining these types of tags, I examined the relationship between data tags and tag clouds and their impact on blogging. The project was reviewed by the group, and changes were made to all pages of the wiki based on group discussion.

To define all the different types of tags, my process of research involved researching the names of the tags online and combining four or five of each term’s definition to create a well-rounded definition and explanation for each type of tag. Because the target audience of the class wiki was lower-level undergraduates, I tried to avoid overly-complicated terminology in my definitions. For the images, I used the Google images search feature and notated the image I used in my tag cloud section below the picture in parenthesis.

I added the tag cloud image to my page after receiving limited feedback from my classmates and positive feedback from the course instructor. After requesting that the instructor review my tag definitions for clarity and accuracy, I was told they made sense and were sufficient. One of my classmates told me that she could not find any corrections to suggest for my pages, and no students left any comments on my pages to date. With this information, I took the liberty of adding an image to one of my pages and left them alone otherwise. I took care of my first draft for presentation and content so it is nice to know that little editing was required on my portion of the wiki.

Overall, the class wiki looks great to me, and it seems to be tied together nicely. Everyone had nice and professional sounding definitions for their topics, and everyone used very helpful graphics. Having never worked on a group wiki before, I would have to say that the process was a collaborative and creative one which created a nice, functional product.