A wiki is a website that enables the easy creation and editing of any number of web pages and is often used to create collaborative websites (Wikipedia, 2009). The educational value of a wiki provides the opportunity for a learning manager (teacher) and students to create a collaborative website for their studies or assignments.
Wikis have been used by classes to create an online textbook that is viewable by the world. Creating a task where students are required to collaborate together, define the focus of the project and produce a wiki as either a whole class or in smaller groups for the world wide web. This sort of task exemplifies the learning engagement theory where group tasks are comprised of three components; Relate, Create and Donate (Kearsley & Shneiderman, 1999).
Creating a Wiki site was as simple as creating an account at www.wetpaint.com and entering some details. Defining the focus of the website is a little bit tricky when you are unsure of your target audience and taking into consideration that the whole world will be able to view your webpage. From here, friends, colleagues and peers who are subscribed to the site are able to view, edit and add to the wiki web page.
This is a very useful resource that should be encouraged for group work as the members of the group can all log into one place to plan and work collaboratively, without losing vital pieces of information. There are many possible uses for this application in classroom tasks and assignments.
I am most interested in using a wiki with my students to create a place where they can post notes from class and links to relevant sites for their peers to access. A wiki site is excellent for encouraging collaborative learning and increasing the opportunities for students to learn and take control of their learning.
References
Wikipedia. (2009, November 29). Wiki. Retrieved December 1, 2009, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki
Kearsley, G. & Shneirderman, B. (1999). Engagement Theory: A framework for technology-based teaching and learning. Version 4/5/99
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Hi! Liisa
ReplyDeleteAlthough I am not in the educational industry, I can think that wiki can be great tool to communicate with parent of student as well. At the moment I communicate with my daughter's teacher with book of Diary but Wiki might be much more efficient and no paper to use!! Save the eco system!!
Regards
Makiko
Hi Makiko,
ReplyDeleteI agree, thats a great idea! Perhaps even a parent-teacher site for communications. That way if a few parents share a concern the teacher may respond once for all to view.
And I am all for saving trees! Now we just need to use an alternative source of energy to power our laptops, computers and charge mobiles :)
Thank you for your comment,
Cheers!
Hi Liisa
ReplyDeleteNot only are we saving trees, but I just did an assignment on the amount of e-waste landfill entering Australian's soil per year.....scary! I'm not sure if we are better off with computers!, but I suppose this is the way and the direction we are all taking.
Great to read your postings.
Till next time