Course

Tools

• Wiki

Realization

Aims

• Achieving a homogeneous knowledge level
  
  • Regarding the literature knowledge as well as methods skills the students' group displayed a high level of heterogeneity. Through the course modern Greek literary history and the implementation of the wiki this heterogeneity is supposed to be offset to a large extent.  
• Research learning, practicing working academically
  • As the master's study course Modern Greek Studies is a research-oriented course, the students are already supposed to learn at a bachelor's level how to develop research questions, start discussions and participate in these as well as orientating themselves towards a scientific discourse. Especially in literary studies electronic sources play an important part as students thereby have access to materials that in the past were hard to access. That is why it is important that students learn how they can find all of the relevant sources (electronic libraries on a global basis, institutes, texts, images etc.) and importantly, how they can use these and can integrate them into their research.  
• A more flexible seminar syllabus
  
  • The flexible selectable and combinable units also serve as a teaching material pool on the topic of literary history that the lecturers can combine and use for their seminars as needed. 

In the wiki environment an open literary history is created in which the meaning clusters can be implemented in various different didactic contexts. The ever-changing combination and selection of these learning units provide the lecturers – depending on the topic, question posed and seminar type – with the possibility of applying the material in a differentiated manner.   

The materials for the wiki and the articles were selected and written by the academic research associates of the Institute of Greek and Latin Languages and Literatures. The articles are amended and evaluated on a continuous basis.  

Illustration 1: Screenshots from the wiki "Didactics of modern Greek literary history" (gallery)

The lecturers and students can tap into and explore the wiki in these five ways: 

• Open read serves as a reader for literary facts and currently consists of over 150 articles on modern Greek literary history between the years 1669-2000. The articles in the open reader help to get a better glimpse into special aspects of literary history. The authors are trying not to create a canon and to allow the readers of the wiki to choose their own freely chosen path through the literary history via hyperlinks.  
• Open search can be used for a targeted search. The articles in the open reader are neither chronological nor sorted according to people. The search registers within the open search (date, author, publication) serve as a gateway to nonlinear reading and allow the reader to go down his/her own reading path via navigation points and links within the text. Thereby, for example, the search for an author results in a number of articles on various aspect of his/her work; an all-comprehensive article on the author's works is not available.    
• Open learn collects the seminar-specific syllabi that the lecturers have compiled in which the texts are selected, combined and categorized based on the focus of the session or meeting. 
• Open write is the area in which the students practice working academically with the use of texts on literary history (writing, peer reviewing). The students also have the possibility of writing articles for the Greece portal of Wikipedia. Several term papers that use this type of blueprint were scrutinized by students in a peer review process. Publishing these on Wikipedia is the next step.
• Open teach offers the lecturers an additional collection of primary texts, research literature (bibliography) and multimedia material as well as links to external electronic sources (text and multimedia) in folders containing 151 authors of modern Greek literary history.  
  

Experiences made by the lecturer

The combination of articles in the open reader and learning activities in the seminar syllabus allows for a simpler organization of an adjusted knowledge exchange within the course. In addition, there is a noticeable improvement regarding the participation of the students in the seminar. The organization of the preparatory and follow-up work within the seminar syllabus increases the discussion level in the face-to-face session as the students are better prepared and, as a whole, are a lot more involved. Finally, the perspective of publication within the Greece portal of the free online encyclopedia Wikipedia has a positive effect on the motivation of the students and increases their willingness to deal with the secondary literature in a critical manner.   

Surveys taken with the target group of students during the starting phase show that the wiki is being used on a weekly basis and that the material within the seminar syllabus can be relatively easily found. Greatly appreciated is the usage of the wiki during the face-to-face sessions (with a projector) and the exercises for preparation and follow-up: The learning activities within the wiki were found to be "very helpful".   

The wiki-supported module 6 "Greek Literature I" can meet the requirement of providing an introductory overview to modern Greek literary history (1669-2000) by didactically integrating the e-learning project. The learning activities in the wiki also support the preparatory work being done for the seminar as well as the student contributions. In comparison to other years the quality of the handed-in term papers is better and the students' knowledge of Greek was strengthened during the early stages of the bachelor's studies.    

Final note: We still need to be careful: teaching and learning within heterogeneous groups is still dependent on offline phases and there is a danger of overloading the bachelor students with too much content. This should always be kept in mind. (Source: Lecture by Bart Soethaert on 03.04.2014)

Further information

• Presentation of the wiki Didactics of modern Greek literary history (lecture recording and presentation, speaker: Bart Soethaert)
• Self-learning module to the FU wiki
• FAQs to the FU wikis

Support offered by CeDiS

• Consulting services for the implementation of digital solutions in teaching: The Center for Digital Systems (CeDiS) has extensive experience of many years when it comes to the implementation of digital media and systems within the fields of teaching, learning and research. We offer a wide variety of consulting services on the implementation of these tools and systems within the entire academic scope and especially at Freie Universität Berlin. 
• Training courses and workshops: For lecturers at Freie Universität Berlin (professors, employees, tutors) as well as lecturers of other universities CeDiS offers training courses and workshops on the topic of teaching and learning with digital media. These course enable participants to implement online elements within their own sphere of teaching.
• The Executive Board of the Freie Universität supports e-learning initiatives: With the e-learning funding program financial resources are provided to lecturers that enrich and improve their courses quality-wise by implementing technological and media-related support. All of the academic staff teaching, the lecturers or even the institutions of the Freie Universität - without the Charité-Universitätsmedizin - can be supported within this program.