Wikis in Online Education

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A wiki is a web application that allows users to read, contribute, delete, edit and reorganize information on its web pages. Wiki also refers to the collaborative software used to create such a website (see Wiki software)(Wikipedia, 10/20/2005).

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[edit] What is a WIKI

A wiki is a web application that allows users to read, contribute, delete, edit and reorganize information on any of its web pages. Wiki also refers to the collaborative software used to create such a website (see Wiki software)(Wikipedia, 10/20/2005)

Wikis is one of the tools that more easily facilitates collaboration between members of a team who are geographically and temporaly disperse.

[edit] Video

(from Wikis in Plain English at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dnL00TdmLY)

[edit] How do Wikis work?

  • Search for a topic of your interest as you would do in a search engine
  • If the topic is there: you can expand it ; if not, you can create it
  • Then you leave it in Wiki for further contributions from you or others
  • You can always come back edit and enhance
  • You can always review and update

[edit] Sample of WikiActivities in Online Courses

  1. Content
  • Work on shared proposals or projects
  • Master List of CORE TOPICS: Create an empty glossary of words, phrases, jargon that pertains to your area to be completed by students as the semester progresses, at the same time that they learn them. [Example]
  • Organize writing on a topic: Provide guidelines to develop a topic, and have students do it in groups or individually. Students from the same class can contribute to it (geographically disperse), or students taking the course in different semesters (temporaly disperse). [Example]
  • Create a book: Share with your students some textbook writing. Create a textbook for using in this particular course. Have students from this semester and consecutive semesters contribute to it [Student's Book: Blended Learning in K-12]
  • Analyze, evaluate in groups
  • Promote group discussion: Have students read and discuss articles with their group. Then expand/modify the article within Wiki
  • Classroom Management
  • Co-create a syllabus: What are the students expectations for this seminar? Can they suggest topics that they would like to be included in the syllabus? [Example Co-create Syllabus ]
  • Accountability: How do I know what each one contributed? History, also you can compare and even recover previous versions
  • Organizer, scheduler: Have students agree on times, food sign up and other assignments:
1.Example [Scheduler]
2.Example [Food signup]
3.Example [Adopt textbooks], or [Exchange Textbooks]




[edit] Wikis & Collaborative Learning

[edit] Collaborative Learning

Collaborative learning, rooted social constructivism, centers on the process of knowledge construction and promotes learning through group interaction and collaborative activities.

Through the use of wikis to create a paper, for example, the instructor promotes five fundamental elements of collaborative learning (Johnson and Johnson 1987; Johnson and Johnson 1991; Waggoner 1992):

1. Positive interdependence: group members share a common goal and resources;
2. Promotive interaction: group members must help each other to work efficiently and effective, and work together as individuals;
3. Individual accountability: group members must have individual accountability and personal responsibility;
4. Interpersonal and small group skills: group members must communicate with, support, and resolve conflicts with each other constructively;
5. Group processing: group members must maintain good working relationship and provide feedback to each other.






[edit] Role of the Instructor

The CL approach transforms the role of teachers from authoritative instructors into mediated facilitators. Consequently, the main purpose of teachers is to facilitate group discussion and provide guidelines when necessary. Lecturers, who generally are experts in the field, have to enable students to obtain some fundamental understanding of the subject they are studying by guiding, encouraging exploration, and participation.

The successfulness of collaborative learning in online courses depends upon these factors:

  • The effectiveness of the instructor in promoting group collaboration,
  • The instructor's role in creating the course conditions and climate to establish an online community.
  • The instructor's ability to engage students to be active participants and favor student-led activities



  • Challenges in the role of the instructor
  • Be ready to monitor behaviors, and prompt for participation
  • Adjust strategies to facilitate process
  • Be patient—give time to process information
  • Be responsive, but give feedback without being overwhelming
  • Do not use each intervention as an opportunity to lecture
  • Be clear about expectations and grading
  • Become a Non-intrusive facilitator



[edit] What types of WIKIs

  • WikEd http://wik.ed.uiuc.edu] is an internet platform that enables all users to read and modify any of the webpages within it. It offers the technology to conveniently construct knowledge from a number of sources and serves as a platform for collecting, archiving and sharing "community" knowledge about many educational topics (Anderson, 2005)
  • Wiktionary Dictionary and thesaurus
  • Wikiquote Collection of quotations
  • Wikisource The free library
  • Wikispecies Directory of species
  • Commons Shared media repository




[edit] Wikis in online education

It makes a lot of sense to use wikis in online distance education, doesn't it? What are the Strenghts, Challenges and Opportunities of using wikis in teaching?



[edit] Strengths

  1. Easy sharing: no having to send files over e-mail
  2. Access: All team members can have access to it anytime anywhere
  3. One version: Everybody is working on the same document, no need to add version numbers to each document
  4. History:Previous versions can be recovered is there is need for it
  5. Collaboration: Learning, exploration, independence, accountability
  6. Over time collaboration: collaboration does not ends with the semester
  7. Learning pluses: Skills, Attitudes
  1. Others?



[edit] Challenges

  1. Plagiarism, copyright: Sharing knowledge in public spaces
  2. Outside editors: other people can come in and make changes
  3. Monitoring
  4. Don't forget to login
  5. Age appropriateness: can middle school children differentiate and handle this responsibility
  6. Others?
  • Can you differentiate from the original content and content that has been edited?
  • Can you determine who the author of the original or edited text is?
  • Is there a way to receive an email or other notification if your original post is edited?



[edit] Opportunities

  1. Collaboration: Learning, exploration, independence, accountability
  2. Over time collaboration: collaboration does not ends with the semester
  3. Learning pluses: Skills, Attittudes
  4. Outside of class discussion: students can read and post discussion topics at home or elsewhere
  5. Outside editors: Using a Wiki with limited access can help demonstrate to students why online sources like Wikipedia aren't always reliable. If students can see how their own work can be manipulated, they might be more inclined to believe someone that says "Beware of info on Wikipedia"
  1. Others?




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