Monday, February 20, 2012

Wiki What? Do you Wiki? Should Students?

In full disclosure, I am going to admit that beside know about Wikipedia and looking at a few education wikis I had no clue what a wiki was. I am now kicking myself for not being aware of this amazing and versatile tool.

Wiki What?

A wiki is an online environment used to quickly develop collaborative works by a community of users. Any one can gain the meaning of the pedia portion of wikipedia, but the term "wiki" come from the Hawaiian "wiki-wiki" which means quick. In my opinion, there should be a hyphen in the name for collaboration because this is the quintessential tool for just that. A wiki affords a collaborative construction of knowledge and truth that the new, interactive Web facilitates for all participants.

Do you Wiki?

No? Well neither did I but you should! I was very suspect of wikis because throughout my education as a student and teacher I have always seen Wikipedia at the top of most information searches but I also heard in the back of my mind, "Wikipedia is not a source!" How wrong that is. Wikipedia is a collection of all human knowledge on various topics and is check almost instantly for accuracy. It should not be the only resource but a guide to find more information and resources for a research project or a quick place to inform you on a topic.

So how do/could you use this in your classroom? Almost any time you want your students to collaborate to generate, review, or synthesize information. Now that I know about wikis, the ideas for use not by me but by students in the classroom are flowing. Any wiki takes teacher set up and monitoring but the payoff is worth it.

Should Your Students?

YES! Wikis allow your students to take ownership and become the authors of their own projects, the learning, and much more in a powerful and collaborative way. Students can create a wiki;

  • at the beginning of the year to introduce themselves to each other, and then add to it throughout the year as they grow as a learner and an individual.
  • to create their own wikipedia page for a research topic. For example, my grade is the desert biome and at the beginning of the year students do research on the American desert, a plant, and animal. They could create a wiki on this information which will also stress the importance of citing sources which will carry over throughout the year and beyond.
  • for ongoing literature resources and ideas. For example, book reviews they create giving advice for book selections used for individual response reading, or as a resource to log character or plot elements of various books like The Westing Game.
  • as on ongoing resource to have students post content material for core subjects like math and science in their own words to be used to review before the lovely state standards exams like Virginia's SOLs
  • as a part of social studies curriculum for the ancient world to track the 7 characteristics of civilization and achievements for each group studied.
These are just a few ideas of wikis I have started or plan on using in my classroom this year and in future years. What idea do you have for incorporating wiki's in yours?

2 comments:

  1. I thinks wiki use is just getting started in classrooms so you are not that far behind. I think it would be interesting to connect with a classroom from one of the countries that that stems from one of the ancient civilizations you study with your students, There's got to be some powerful comparison and contrasts as well as perspective about the ancient civilization.

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  2. I like your idea of using a wiki as an intro for each student at the beginning of the year and adding to it throughout the year. Are fifth graders the oldest in your school? Giving them a printout of their wiki page at the end of the year could be a nice parting gift as they head on to middle school.

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