Wiki and Edit: Four-Letter Words That Can Change Learning

Leadership Council

January 21, 2009

Corinne Carriero and Ellen Robertson

Wiki Defined

Collaboratively edited body of work

Created by Ward Cunningham in 1995 as an easy publishing tool

Short form of “wiki-wiki”, Hawaiian for “quick” bus system

Part of Web 2.0 (Read/Write Web) toolkit• Blogs• RSS feeds• Aggregators• Social bookmarking• Photo publishing sites• Podcasting and

vodcasting

Wiki Characteristics

Created in real time

Organic and democratic in nature

Everyone could be “editor in chief”

Considered “open source” – no one owns it

Everyone together is smarter than everyone alone

Everyone could:• add• fix• erase• start

Power of Wikis

2004 tsunami that killed 175, 000 people: 1st post appeared 9 hours later as a

beginning wiki 24 hrs later---edited 400 times with

photos, charts, lists of dead 48 hrs later---edited 1,200 times and

included video of wave itself Forget CNN—this was the most

comprehensive info of all media

Types of Wikis

Wikitextbooks

Wikirecipes

Wikitravel

Wiktionary

Wikinews

Wikiquotes

Classroom curriculum wikispaces

A Wiki of wiki authoring siteshttp://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?SiteList

“Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge”.

~Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder, 2004

Most famous Wiki:Wikipedia Who is an authority?

High profile errors

“Cream” rises to the top or curdles

Collaborative efforts of the group determine veracity

Wikipedia has been called “Whackypedia” but this name is not warranted!

What a wiki looks like

Some examples:• Graduate Course Held by Wiki• High School Science• Curriculum wikis

Basic wiki components

• Editable pages• Ability to upload documents• Ability to link• Ability to invite editors• History of changes• Revert back tool

Wiki’s power in education

Teaches students collaborative construction of knowledge• Edited body of work becomes reference tool

for others

Teaches negotiation skills

Teaches publication skills

Teaches students how to create and work as a community

Wiki’s power in education

In summary – Provides opportunity for students to engage in authentic, purposeful work

Why use wikis in the Classroom?

To collect and disseminate school information

As a tool for articulation

To amass and publish tailor made resources

Why use wikis in the Classroom?

Great motivator for students

Easy to monitor

Allows for creativity and innovation

Encourages participation of all students

Promotes communication between students, teachers, and parents

A new, interesting way to learn

Educational Uses of Wikis

Simple websites Peer-reviewed projects Group projects Manage school and classroom documents Classroom discussion and debate Teacher collaboration Post classroom assignments Collaborate with other classes

Some specific classroom uses

Create a classroom website Create a class newspaper by wiki Create a book by wiki (group authoring) Course review Have students use a wiki to plan details

of a field trip Let students manage a project: tasks,

goals, responsibilities, and so on

More classroom uses

Collaborate on an international unit, or an e-pal exchange using a themed wiki

Project development with peer review

Track a group project

Presentations

Some wikis are questionable resources for research

Anonymous authors Student-posted information may

be modified/spammed Vandalism Filtering

Challenges of Wiki Use in Education

These challenges come into play with public wikis! Educators can use PRIVATE wikis to get around

them.

Free Wiki sites (special considerations for educators)

wikispaces.com

pbwiki.com

How can administrators use wikis?

Let’s brainstorm!