Wikis
A wiki is a collection of webpages (powered by specialist software) designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify its content. This allows for collaboration and interaction among a wide set of users and the sharing and exchange of information.
Wikis can focus on a particular subject or a wide range of topics (like the most famous wiki - Wikipedia). Like Blogs, wikis can contain audio, video and link to other websites and places of interest.
Examples of use in education
- Wikipedia (probably the biggest wiki) encourages teachers to use their site to aid learning (as well as helping maintain their site). They suggest students participate in exercises such as working on existing or requested articles; linking orphaned articles to appropriate places; fixing spelling, factual, grammatical, and other errors in articles; and even translating articles from other languages.
- After a lesson, students could go to the class wiki and summarise the lesson, in turn making it easier to take in the information.
- Students can work on notes collaboratively in the wiki before an exam. During this process they all add their notes, correcting what’s wrong, and reviewing the wiki.
- A wiki can introduce concepts and allow students to explore class projects. Students can research, add notes, organise information, and even add videos to their wikis so they end up with a mass of information about the topic (e.g. Security and Privacy wiki)
- Students can become content producers, not just receivers.
- Wikis are an information resource that can be easily maintained and updated. This can be very useful when covering a topic that's subject to change.
Examples of Wikis
How do I do that?
Setting up a wiki
There are many different types of Wiki available (e.g. PBworks - used by our E-Learning wiki). Some cost money, some are free, and some carry adverts.
When you've chosen which Wiki system you'd like to use you simply:
- Visit the website
- Set up an account with a username and password
- Follow the basic on-line instructions to set up any introductory text you wish.
- Add any pages you want (this should be extremely simple and automated)
- Decide if you want the Wiki to be public or private. If private then you'll need to invite 'contributors' and assign them a level of editing rights so that they can edit the wiki.
Wiki etiquette
- Cite your sources. Link right to an authoritative source that backs you up.
- Be polite. Wikis are tools to allow us to work better together, so don't get mad when someone uses it, even though they don't have great grammar. Just fix it.
- Don't use copyrighted material without permission. Provide external links to copyrighted materials and take advantage of fair use when you can, but don't steal copyrighted material.
- Maintain a Neutral Point of View (NPOV). Present information straight forward using language that would make it difficult to tell who wrote it - neutral.
Advantages of wikis in education
- They maximize interplay. Anyone with the right access can add, amend, or delete information.
- They're democratic. Although a hierarchy of access can be predetermined when setting up a wiki, most users will have equal rights when it comes to editing.
- They update in real time. All changes are instant.
- They're text-based. This might encourage writing skills and allow 'editors' to give planning and thought to what they want to add, edit or delete.
- Permit public access. Most Wiki pages can be seen and amended by the public - allowing for input beyond a select group of students.
- Promote negotiation. Subjects might be contentious and subjective opinion might play a part with certain topics. An discussion might therefore take place between 'editors' who wish to produce an article with which they can both agree on.
- Permit collaborative document editing. This might aid users who are working towards a common aim. For example, a wiki dedicated to the appreciation of urban art in Bristol might benefit from input of people who are similarly interested in the subject.
- Work on volunteer collaboration.
Disadvantages of wikis in education
- It might be difficult to evaluate the contributions of individual students in a wiki. (although many wikis allow you to view the contributions made by users).
- They are prone to vandalism. Although it is often possible to roll-back a wiki to a pre-vandalised state.
- They can allow for anonymity. This can be beneficial or not - depending on what you want. You can always require contributors to be logged in to post.
- Feedback and editing takes place in public. Editing and amending of an article will take place in front of other students and/or the public. Some may find this intimidating.
- Can disseminate faulty knowledge. For example, Wikipedia is constantly being featured in the media due to inaccuracies. There is some debate as to what extent incorrect information is 'allowed' to remain in wikis before the wiki community self-corrects inaccuracies.
Page last updated 23 April 2012