Web 2.0 has a range of social software tools, such as wikis, blogs and podcasts, connecting groups of people and allowing them to collaborate in virtual environment. Wikis in education work particularly well, by providing powerful tools for student group projects, sharing and creating new knowledge.
What is Wiki?
A wiki is a website that can be modified by visitors. It facilitates online group work, collaborative learning, writing and creation of knowledge. The best known wiki network is Wikipedia, a free collaboratively developed encyclopaedia with more than 3.7 million articles in English.
Wiki Benefits
- Wikis are easy to set, use and maintain
- They provide easy and flexible access by allowing both public and selected use of the website
- Visitors can create content independently and collaboratively
- Wikis keep document history, allowing to track its changes
- Wiki software is mostly free
Wikis in Education
The main benefit of wikis in education is in facilitating collaborative learning, which has been shown to perform significantly better in developing critical thinking skills than individual learning.
Wiki is a natural tool in educating the Z generation students, born into the digital era. Students may use wikis to work on a group project, gather information or display the outcomes of their research. Similarly, lecturers may use the wiki to co-author the curriculum and teaching material for a course.
In education wikis can be applied for
- Project based learning
- Collaborative knowledge creation
- Collaborative writing
- Creating on-line textbooks
- Display of student work
- Student portfolios
- Collaboration between teachers
Making Wiki Effective in the Classroom
Wikis transform the classroom dynamics and redefine the teacher and student positions. Collaborative learning with wikis changes the role of teachers from authoritative instructors into mediated facilitators. Wiki based learning requires students to be active participants in knowledge construction, in contrast to traditional learning, where the student is a passive recipient of information.
Wiki Engines
The best known wiki engine is Wikimedia, the software platform upon which Wikipedia has been developed. It is a license free open source wiki software, as are TWiki, PmWiki, DokuWiki, TiddlyWiki, MoinMoinWiki etc. There are proprietary wiki engines, such as Confluence, Wikispaces, Wiki Server etc, which restrict the source code modification.
Case Studies of Wiki in the Classroom
At Boston College a wiki has been used in the Computers in Management course, by Jerry Kane, Assistant Professor of Information Systems. The wiki provides all teaching material for the course and replaces textbook. The students have an active role in developing the syllabus, course content generation and peer review. They extend the course information by adding exam questions and news clips from sources such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Business Week.
At National Singapore University a wiki has been used in the Computing & Society course for a collaborative writing project.
The Flat Classroom Project is a collaborative project that connects high school students around the world. The project was co-founded by Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsey at Westwood Schools. It uses a wiki as a platform, to develop global collaboration, Web 2.0 technology skills and appreciation of other cultures.
If you have experience and interesting ideas on using wikis in the classroom, we invite you to contribute to this post.
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