Educational Uses of Wikis for Sharing LDS Messages

Although there are millions of articles on educational uses of wikis, I narrowed my search to wikis that are used to educate LDS people on ways to use wikis (and other new media) to share the gospel. I chose MormonWiki to highlight here. Stephanie Allen mentioned the More Good Foundation (abbreviated as “MGF” from here on) when she visited our class, and MormonWiki is sponsored by MGF and has a link to the MGF website.

MormonWiki is modeled after Wikipedia. It has the same look and the same tabs, and it provides instructions on how to create and edit wiki articles. In addition, it has links to hundreds of LDS articles, videos (including YouTube presentations), and other LDS resources and topics. Some members might feel more comfortable using MormonWiki in their first attempts at writing wiki articles.     

Although MormonWiki is open to anyone who wishes to contribute “positive and balanced content” about Mormonism and the LDS Church, MGF has editorial control.   

Here’s the path to MormonWiki:

http://www.mormonwiki.com/Main_Page

Notice that this site is a “dot com” though. Unfortunately, mormonwiki.org is an anti-Mormon site.

The link to the More Good Foundation site is also helpful. Members can check the “Ways to Share the Gospel Online” link on MGF to find useful tips on getting started. Here is the path for MGF:

http://www.moregoodfoundation.org

Links to BYU NewsNet articles are also helpful.

Why I’m taking this class

About me…I have a Master’s degree in Instructional Technology from BYU, and I have been working at BYU since 2006 (counting the time I taught as part-time faculty in the Marriott School). I’m not in the PhD program, so I’m taking the class for fun! Actually, I chose the class to learn more about tools to enhance my work with distance learning and to educate student employees on the big picture of good instructional design. Undergrads often think that instructional design is all about creating the media–adding lots of “bells and whistles”–instead of about designing good instruction and then using old and new media to enhance it. 

Educational Uses of Blogs

For this posting, I did a Google search and found more than 15 million results on the topic of “educational uses of blogs,” but I limited my reading to the first 120 items. Most of the information was old–the only posting from 2008 was by a classmate! Although it looks like I took the easy way out by copying the first article on the Results list, I really did read the descriptions for all 120 items and then chose 12 to study in detail.

The first listing was my favorite because it was brief and clear, it gave a detailed bullet list of ways to use blogs in education, and it mentioned creating a shared blog to complete a WebQuest. The WebQuest idea would appeal to everyone in my area and would be fun for me to set up for learning. Here’s the link:

http://www.pembinatrails.ca/program/technology/uses_of_blogs_in_education.htm  

Be sure to skip to the second page of the article to see the bullet list. The first page of the article quotes Stephen Downes quoting Henry Farrell on “Five major uses for blogs in education,” but the really novel ideas have been extracted from ADE Bloggers. The ADE list contains 44 ideas, and the WebQuest suggestion is number 44.

New Media and the Gospel

Elder Ballard pointed out that the Lord inspired the invention of “New Media,” so we should take the opportunity to use the new tools to help spread the Gospel. As Elder Ballard said, we cannot stand on the sidelines and let others–especially critics–define our beliefs. Church members often think that another member can answer for them, but Elder Ballard helps us understand that all members can “help overcome misperceptions through your own sphere of influence, which ought to include the Internet.”

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