Week Three Questions

What uses might a collaborative wiki or blog have in your chosen (current or desired) work environment? How would they support learning and/or performance? What would be the design and implementation challenges if management tried to do this? What would be the design and implementation challenges of a user-initiated effort?

I currently work as a contract instructional designer for an IT implementation at a large school district in Florida. We have just completed “go-live” so the system is up and running and people involved in the project (these are future users of the system) are like kids making it down to the end of the street without training wheels for the first time – a great accomplishment but a little more riding is needed to smooth out the process.

I think a wiki or blog would be timely here for people to share their experiences, post tips as well as admonitions. It could also be a place for administrators to post updates, reminders, and progress reports. I think it would help people use the system as prescribed and so reduce the error rate. It would also affirm users that they are doing the right thing, as well as give administrators a sense of how the system is being received.

I could see the wiki being initially created by the Information Systems department. I think the main challenge would be getting people to participate. They are already feeling overloaded with work, so it would be important to communicate and demonstrate the value of the wiki. The other challenge would be to create the proper social environment and acceptable etiquette. There have been a couple squeaky wheels on the project who tend to frame things in a negative way. It would be bad for morale if they had a predominant voice on the site.

The user-initiated aspect of it would be interesting because the system is integrated, meaning there is one system for all departments. This replaces the separate systems that existed before, and is forcing people to work together where they did not before. The design of the wiki would have to present an image of a team and invite participants equally. It would have to be implemented such that each department was given equally response and responsibility. Maybe the project director could provide input to individuals across departments equally.