Wiki's

Wiki’s are an open format which people are able to exchange ideas or discuss a number of topics via an internet wiki. The example given of a wiki in uses in our lecture was of a number of people planning a camping trip. Each person would add to a list the equipment their needed for the trip. After this was established each member would list what equipment they had and tick it off the list and so on and so on. In education this can be a great tool for students to discuss a topic presented and share ideas with each other. The only problem with using wiki’s in the classroom is that it is open to anyone and information can be changed or altered to incorrect information. This can lead to students sabotaging each other’s work.

Duffy and Bruns (2006) list several possible educational uses of wikis:
• Students can use a wiki to develop research projects, with the wiki serving as ongoing documentation of their work.
• Students can add summaries of their thoughts from the prescribed readings, building a collaborative annotated bibliography on a wiki.
• A wiki can be used for publishing course resources like syllabi and handouts, and students can edit and comment on these directly for all to see.
• Teachers can use wikis as a knowledge base, enabling them to share reflections and thoughts regarding teaching practices, and allowing for versioning and documentation.
• Wikis can be used to map concepts. They are useful for brainstorming, and editing a given wiki topic can produce a linked network of resources.
• A wiki can be used as a presentation tool in place of conventional software, and students are able to directly comment on and revise the presentation content.
• Wikis are tools for group authoring. Often group members collaborate on a document by emailing to each member of the group a file that each person edits on their computer, and some attempt is then made to coordinate the edits so that everyone’s work is equally represented; using a wiki pulls the group members together and enables them to build and edit the document on a single, central wiki page.

Reference
Duffy, P. & Bruns, A. (2006). The use of blogs, wikis and RSS in education: A conversation of possibilities. Proceedings of the Online Learning and Teaching Conference 2006, Brisbane: September 26.Retrieved December 2010 from
https://olt.qut.edu.au/udf/OLT2006/gen/static/papers/Duffy_OLT2006_paper.pdf