session 4

Session Four: What is a Wiki?

Wikis can really exemplify the idea of the Read/Write Web in that they allow a web space to constantly evolve into an informative and ever-changing educational resource, with contributions from people working together across space and time. In this session, you will learn how wikis are constructed and maintained and you will get the opportunity to explore how people are using this technology as an educational tool. You will also have the opportunity to create your own wiki for personal or educational use.



Readings

* Think Outside the Blog
This article describes how Wikis differ from blogs and provides information about how you can get started using this tool in the classroom.
* Wide Open Spaces: Wikis, Ready or Not
This article defines wikis and detail and addresses the pedagogical benefits and challenges of using them in the classroom.
* Wiki definition in Wikipedia
This continually evolving definition of Wikis can provide you with a thorough history about how they came about as well as information about the various types of tools available for creating Wiki communities and how these different tools work.



Activities

WIKIS in EFL (from Tom)

1. Explore some of these examples of how wikis are currently being used for educational purposes.
* Holocaust Wiki Project
Following a WebQuest model, this project asks students to create a branching simulation 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 create a narrative that reflects their research on the Holocaust.
* Pay It Forward Wiki
This wiki is being created by students attending Arapahoe High School who are currently reading Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. They are using it to brainstorm project ideas and eventually propose a plan to give back to their community so that the world doesn't lose individualism and end up like the world described by Huxley in the book.
* Thousand and One Flat World Tales Project
This project eplaces the "authentic" publishing of the 20th century classroom--hallways, newsletters, literary journals, etc--with authentic publishing in the 1001 Flat World Tales "blook": a potentially endliess series of stories from students around the world, inter-linked on individual student blogs.
* Wikibooks
Wikibooks is a collection of open content textbooks, manuals, and other texts with supporting book-based texts that are written collaboratively. This site is a wiki, meaning that anyone, including you, can edit any book module right now by clicking on the edit this page link that appears in every Wikibooks module.
* wikiHow
wikiHow is a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest how-to manual.
2. Complete Section IV of your planning template.
3. There has been a lot of recent debate on the validity of articles and content posted in Wikipedia and Wikibooks. After exploring some of these educational wiki projects, reflect in your blog about the benefits and challenges of using this technology with students. Post a comment on at least two of your colleague's blogs.

Optional

Set up your own wiki space at one of these free hosting sites or make a contribution to one of the spaces you find as you search through some of the wikis currently hosted on these servers.

* Wikia
* WikiSpaces
* PBWiki
* Webb-logged

1. Brainstorm ideas for how you might use a wiki in your classroom or school to create a meaningful project for collaboration and learning.
2. Make sure to respond to at least one other message posted by a colleague in the discussion board.



Optional Reading

* Wikis in the Classroom
* Wikimania Conference
* Wikipedia in the Classroom: Consensus Among Educators?