About this Project

From APWH Wiki

The Holocaust Wiki Project was first done in 2005 using TikiWiki as the wiki engine (That version can be found here). For the 2006 school year, I moved the project over to a MediaWiki engine. This was done for a variety of reasons that will be posted just prior to or after my presentation of this project at NECC 2006 in San Diego.

This project has been posted on a couple blogs, so I thought I would provide a brief overview of the project.

The project began when I started discussing a way to integrate a wiki into the classroom with SDSU Professor Bernie Dodge. He had been working on creating a number of Wiki design patterns that could be integrated with the WebQuest model or stand on their own. For a number of years I have been doing a WebQuest on the Holocaust and was looking to try something different. Then as part of a seminar he taught, I developed the idea using the Ant Farm design pattern.

I described the gist of the project in my blog a while back:

Basically they are creating a branching simulation (think choose your own adventure) about a family in the Holocaust. They have to come up with realistic decision points, describe the pros and cons, address the consequences of each decision, and fill it in with a narrative that reflects their research on the Holocaust. Now that in itself is pretty neat, but the REALLY cool part is that they are all (about 30 different groups), putting their branching simulations into a Wiki. Using a Wiki allows them easily create web pages (ever try to teach Dreamweaver and academic content), edit each others work, and easily link the pages together.

Feel free to e-mail me (danmcdowell@cox.net) with any questions, comments, suggestions, etc.