Page:Wikipedia and Academic Libraries.djvu/270

Rh Hong Kong Literary Landscape MediaWiki: A Collaborative Learning Platform

As a web 2.0 application, Wikis provide online collaborative function. The Wiki user is not only an information receiver but an information creator as well. Wiki applications, like Wikipedia, adopted a very simple markup based on UseModWiki because of its simplicity and security. As an open-source program, UseModWiki is a user-friendly computer language that can be learnt and used very easily. The Hong Kong Literary Landscape MediaWiki adopted the MediaWiki application to build up a literary reading and writing platform. By making use of the discussion platform, both the docents and the student participants are able to exchange their views and comments about reading and writing. This kind of interaction can facilitate a collaborative learning environment. After submitting their creative writings about the literary walks of their districts, the project coordinator created a separate subpage for each piece of writing submitted by the student participants. The project coordinator then invited the docents to comment on the creative writings in the discussion box after uploading these works. All student participants could respond to the comments made by the docent as well. They could add not only text but also photos and hyperlinks in the discussion box. is interactive process was an essential part of collaborative learning activities in the Fun Project.

Conclusion

The Hong Kong Literary Landscape MediaWiki is the first of its kind in preserving and providing access to literary walk materials in Hong Kong. Looking ahead, there are three major challenges in terms of sustainable growth and development of this Wiki project. First, there should be a sustainable funding support from public agencies. Given the success of the Fun Project, the organizers successfully solicited the funding support from the SCOLAR for three similar projects on literary walks for junior secondary students, namely Read/Write My City Project (2015–2017), Narrating Him/Her in My City (2017–2019), and