Wiki Wiki!!!

For my first Wiki I decided to create a page that could be of use to both myself and others studying this course. Too many times I have found a good interactive learning website and when I want to find it again it is impossible to find. With this in mind I decided to create a Wiki that provided websites with interactive learning tools embedded in them. For my home page I had all the key learning areas listed and then from each one I worked out how I could link it to its own individual page. After experimenting with my page I now understand a Wiki to be a website that can be edited by anyone with the right access. Leuf and Cunningham (2001) call this ‘open editing’ with users being able to edit information, change layout, and update structure and content and much more. Wikis have already been recognised for their ability to facilitate collaborative learning and studies have shown them to be a great way for students to exchange ideas (Augar, N., Raitman, R. & Zhou, W. 2004).

The possibilities for the use of Wikis in the classroom are endless. I thought a great way for a Wiki to be implemented into class instruction could be through a class story. Students could build on to the story over a period of time, with every student having an input into its direction. I have also just found out that many Wiki sites have a feature called ‘user authentication’, this feature means only certain people can access the Wiki. This makes it ideal for an educational setting as it can prevent outside users from adding inappropriate information. Overall I found the process of creating a Wiki to be relatively simple and it will be something I hope to keep adding to. As long as measures are put in place to protect the students’ security and wellbeing, I believe Wikis have the potential to be a worthwhile and engaging educational tool.

Check out my Wiki at - http://useful-webpages-for-teachers.wikispaces.com/
(It is a work in progress, so please feel free to add to it).

References

Augar, N., Raitman, R. & Zhou, W. (2004). Teaching and learning online with wikis. In R. Atkinson, C. McBeath, D. Jonas-Dwyer & R. Phillips (Eds), Beyond the comfort zone: Proceedings of the 21st ASCILITE Conference (pp. 95-104). Perth, 5-8 December.
http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/perth04/procs/augar.html

Leuf, B. & Cunningham, W. (2001). The Wiki way: Quick collaboration on the Web. Upper Saddle River, NJ, USA: Addison Wesley.