The Wonderful World of Wikis

What Is A Wiki?

The article “7 Things You Should Know About Wikis” defines a wiki as “a webpage that can be viewed and modified by anybody with a web browser and access to the internet.” It is basically a collaborative database which takes sharing information to a whole new level. While many teachers are used to uploading files and sharing them via a staff share drive, wikis provide a new avenue of storage. Information can not only be stored and retrieved by other members of a network, but can further be edited by and shared with members outside of the network. This includes sharing information and files from school to school, district to district, community to community, and even country to country! This presents students, as well as teachers, with an excellent opportunity to network, collaborate, and to share information instantly.

Use In the Classroom

Wikis have many uses in the classroom. See the following website for some great ideas!:

50 Says to Use Wikis for a More Collaborative and Interactive Classroom

http://www.smartteaching.org/blog/2008/08/50-ways-to-use-wikis-for-a-more-collaborative-and-interactive-classroom/

This website promises exactly what the title says! It’s an excellent resource for

making wikis an active tool rather than a passive storage system.

Wikis are of particular interest to media specialists. The Article “7 Things…” states that wikis show the evolution of the thought process. If this is true, then wikis can be used to illustrate and add to the research process. If you’ve taken Instructional Design, chances are you’ve come across how many steps can be involved in the evolution of an idea into a final product. Even if the steps are simplified, it is necessary to have a visual representation of the cognitive process. In this way, you can document how a few brainstorming ideas evolve into a finished product.

So when it comes time for a science fair project or a research project, wikis provide an excellent opportunity for collaborative group work where ideas can be shared. This can be done in a variety of ways: interactive notetaking (adding to each other’s notes and instantly adding resources to a group bibliography), posting multimedia resources to share with the group, creating group outlines, storing files for group powerpoints or presentations, and finally using the wiki to create a finished product or to post the finished product on so that it can be shared.

Drawbacks

Wiki comes from the Hawaiian word wiki-wiki which means quick. The problem is that as quickly as information can be uploaded to the wiki, it can be deleted or destroyed in the blink of an eye. With or without the consent of the person who uploaded it. Students may find it frustrating when their work is accidently deleted by another student.

Wikis are also notorious for misrepresentation of factual information because, for the most part, they are used to support personal opinions. And with opinions come biases. Wikis are rarely used to document scientific or factual evidence because such facts would be subject to modification. This goes to show that there is no guarantee that the person uploading or modifying information on a wiki is a reliable source of information. This is a problem that I have come across with my students, because they like to copy and paste quotations from Wikipedia in their papers. Honestly, I’m beginning to feel like a broken record because I’m constantly having to explain why resources like Wikipedia cannot be trusted (never mind copyright infringement with the copy/paste scenario).

One last major drawback to using wikis in the classroom is that not everyone has access to the internet outside of school, and not all schools have the funding to provide every student in a class with a computer. Some teachers are also slow to embrace new technology and have a fear of it. If you are one of those teachers, I recommend the following website:

Teachers First: Wiki Walkthrough

http://www.teachersfirst.com/content/wiki/

This website provides an easy to follow tutorial of what a wiki is, how to set one

up, and how to utilize it in the classroom. The short, simple instructions make learning as painless as possible.

Additional Resources

Best Educational Wikis of 2010

http://blog.wikispaces.com/2011/01/best-educational-wikis-of-2010.html

This website provides a sample of how wikis have been used interactively and successfully in the classroom.

WetPaint

http://wikisineducation.wetpaint.com/?mail=1140&t=anon

This website provides educational hosting for wikis and allows users to create their own wiki for educational purposes.

My Brilliant Failure – Wikis In the Classroom

http://kairosnews.org/my-brilliant-failure-wikis-in-classrooms

This article explores how group interaction and collaborative documentation is needed to make wikis successful in the classroom.

Rubrics for Assessment

http://www.uwstout.edu/soe/profdev/rubrics.cfm

This website provides a rubric for grading many types of technology based projects including the use of wikis and blogs.

Blogs and Wikis: Use In Libraries

http://islmablogswikis.wikispaces.com/

This website provides links to wikis that are used in public and school libraries as well as offering information on how Media Specialists can best utilize the tool within their own library.