The state of Wiki usage in U.S. K 12 Schools

In the first part of this dissertation, I document wiki usage in U.S. K-12 settings by analyzing data on a representative sample drawn from a population of nearly 180,000 wikis. My research group, which I lead and managed, measured the opportunities wikis provide for students to develop 21st century skills such as expert thinking, complex communication, and new media literacy. There are four types of wiki usage: (1) trial wikis and teacher resource-sharing sites (40%), (2) teacher content-delivery sites (34%), (3) individual student assignments and portfolios (25%) and (4) collaborative student presentations and workspaces (1%). Wikis created in schools serving low-income students have fewer opportunities for 21st century skill development and shorter lifetimes than wikis from schools serving affluent students. In this study, I illustrate the exciting potential that Web 2.0 data warehouses offer for educational research. In an extensive methodological addendum, I describe how the data from wikis were gathered and how wild quality was assessed. The first part of this dissertation was published in Educational Researcher. In the second part of this dissertation, I detail the development of the Wiki Quality Instrument (WQI) and its related protocols. I first present the WQI, and then I describe the protocols and training procedures that our group used in applying the WQI. I then describe the development of the instrument and its associated protocols. Finally, I suggest ways that the WQI can be adapted for use by educators and other researchers in a variety of settings.