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Wikis

by Richard Wenchao He — last modified 2009-10-08 09:12

Wikis' implications for K-12 include group collaboration and problem solving, peer editing during the writing process, and electronic protfolios. Students can work from anywhere, which means they are able to contribute on their own schedule rather than being limited to the school day or class period. Wikis keep track of changes, so teachers can look at successive versions of documents for electronic protfolios or the contributions each student has made. When the work is complete, students can invite parents and others to read their work and comment. Teachers can use wikis for students to collaborate on a document by writing, editing, and revising it in their own classes, across a grade, school, or disctrict, or even outside those traditonal boundaries.

Reference

Solomon, G. & Schrum, L. (2007) Web 2.0: New Tools, New Schools. Washington, DC, ISTE.



Links to Resources


Wiki Services

Wikispaces offers its service free to educators with options for private labelling for K-12 schools:http://www.wikispaces.com/site/privatelabel/k-12 Read the whitepaper of Wikispaces Private Label for Schools: http://www.wikispaces.com/site/privatelabel/whitepaper-schools

MediaWiki is a a free server-based wiki software package, which means that it is protected and free of advertising. It is written in PHP, originally for use on Wikipedia. It is now used by several other projects of the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation and by many other wikis, including this website, the home of MediaWiki. http://www.mediawiki.com

PBworks hosts classroom workspaces, and lets you create wikis for your classes: http://pbworks.com/academic.wiki

Wetpaint offers educators ad free wiki hosting: http://www.wetpaint.com/category/Education--Ad-Free 


Examples of Class Wikis

Wikispaces

PB Wiki

Wetpaint


Nominated Best Education Wikis Award 2008




Ideas and Tips on Using Social Networking Sites for Educational Purposes


Here there are tips for motivating students to post in wikis: http://wikisineducation.wetpaint.com/page/Motivating+students+to+post

This webpage introduces how to use wiki in classrooms: http://www.det.wa.edu.au/education/cmis/eval/curriculum/ict/wikis

This article explains in what way wikis can be used as a collaborative tool by teachers to store, harvest and share corporate knowledge, and in what way class wikis can be used effectively in different subject areas: http://www.decs.sa.gov.au/learningtechnologies/files/links/Web_2_tools2006_Taylor.pdf

7 things you should know about wiki: http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7004.pdf

Grant (2006) addressed the potential uses of wikis - online editable websites - as learning tools in schools. The study places wikis in the context of current relevant literature about collaborative learning, summarising major theories of learning in communities and knowledge-building in networked groups. It also looks briefly at the trends in the wider area of ‘social software’, of which wikis are just one example. Using wikis in school is explored further through a short-term ‘case study’ in a UK secondary school. The literature and research background is used to analyse some of the emerging issues surrounding using wikis in the classroom highlighted through this case study. The paper looks both at the affordances of the technology itself and the wider context of the classroom, and offers some provisional conclusions about the potential of using wikis to support collaborative learning in schools. Find out more at http://www.futurelab.org.uk/resources/documents/discussion_papers/Wikis_in_Schools.pdf

Parker & Chao (2007) explained wiki usage, investigated its contribution to various learning paradigms, examined the current literature on wiki use in education, and suggested additional uses in teaching software engineering: http://static.scribd.com/docs/ekqe0j8qtjmus.pdf

Konieczny (2007) leads us from the basics of wikis for teaching and learning to Wikipedia and a whole new concept of productive activity for faculty and students. It explains the value of wikis for teaching and learning as compared to web pages. It goes on to show the power of open source learning and the Wikipedia. Most important, it shows how the Wikipedia and global peer review can directly and immediately
influence the quality and relevance of teaching and learning in classrooms and learning spaces today. Find out more at http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.113.7307&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Lund & Smordal (2006) asks to what extent collective cognition can be supported and sustained in classroom practices. One major
challenge for learning in technology-rich, collaborative environments is to develop design principles that balance learner exploration with a more goal directed effort. They argue that teachers play a key role in such efforts and that educational wiki designs need to allow such a role in order to support group knowing. First, from an activity theoretical perspective they discuss teaching in knowledge collectives as new type of educational activity. Next, they analyze functions and meta level affordances found in the MediaWiki application. This is followed by a presentation of an intervention study in which the MediaWiki was used by a class of Upper Secondary School learners in Norway. Findings are used to discuss design principles for wikis that support collective cognition and where there is a place for the teacher. Find out more at http://delivery.acm.org.ezproxy1.library.usyd.edu.au/10.1145/1150000/1149466/p37-lund.pdf?key1=1149466&key2=0438037421&coll=ACM&dl=ACM&CFID=45132151&CFTOKEN=53670316

Austin et al. (2007) used wikis to dissolve the boundaries in education and conducted collaborative learning projects between schools. Find out more at http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.125.5095&rep=rep1&type=pdf


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