Wanting a Wiki??

Oh the Wonderful World of Wiki

Several conferences in 2008 had a wiki as the star attraction. A video explained a wiki by having a hand place pictures on a white board.  The suggestion was that wiki’s were a tool to help facilitate instruction and collaboration, however a cloud of doubt rolled into my thoughts: Why haven’t I seen any suggestions on how to integrate wikis into classroom instruction? It took about a semester of deeper delving to realize that not many examples of classroom wiki usage were out there.  So after a semester of playing, I have come up with some examples of what I have done using a wiki in the classroom: 

1.      Narrative wiki page: Each student made a page on a wiki explaining an event, including an image, and a link.
   
2. 2.     Posting Discussions: the teacher posts a question or discussion having students respond for homework.
   
3. 3.     Students can create their own wiki for independent reading/ book reports/ or term knowledge and invite others to the page.
   
4. 4.     Students can collaborate on a wiki page for information (note: currently students’ are still having trouble collaborating on a page without erasing work)
   

 Benefits of a Wiki

1.       Class has access to a sort of mail on the wiki that they can all correspond.
   
2. 2.     Can monitor times/ and who is doing what work on the pages.
   
3. 3.     Can be used to link and share resources.
   
4. 4.      The Wiki can be private or public.
   

Of course, the wiki takes some dedication and patience; the students need accounts, as well as some practice on the wiki. Even though these students are the digital natives, this is a relatively new/ unused program for them. The difference is how quickly they adjust to the new technology. Several of my students used it throughout the summer after introducing it during the spring term, and by the end of the fall 9 weeks they were using it as a regular digital medium.