Using Wikis in the Classroom

Before you can launch students on a group project involving wikis, you obviously need to explain what wikis are and their basic functionality. Students can get a quick grasp of the basics of wikis by watching this video:



And, a good article from Information Week explains How to Use Wikis for Business. If you have students watch the video and read this article before class, you can get them up to speed on the idea of wikis pretty quickly.

Naturally, the students will need a free wiki site to use for any wiki project you assign. Two of my favorites are wikispaces and pbwiki. They are both very straight forward and easy to use.

Wikis are obviously great for group projects because of their collaborative aspects. Here are a few approaches you could take:

1) Student Study Guide - Have the students create and edit pages that provide a study guide for each chapter (or topic) you cover in class. This requires explaining concepts in their own words which reinforces learning. And this type of wiki can act as a repository of knowledge that next semester's students could update and expand.
2) Wiki moderator - Have a student create and moderate a page (that other students update) for a week. The page should cover one topic from the current course content and aim to provide a comprehensive summary of the topic.
3) Battling Business Units (with apologies to Dilbert) - Have competing groups create wiki pages on the same topic. Then assign one group each week to review all the pages on that topic and combine them into one comprehensive (definitive?) resource.

And if you need some inspiration for projects or additional insight for students, check out the wiki resources below.

42 Ways to Use Wikis
Want to get started but need some inspiration?

Using Wikis with K-12 Students - Works for college students too!

Using Wiki in Education - A wiki book that provides ideas for higher ed uses of wikis. Requires log-in but access is free.

Weblogg-ed Presentation Links - Even more info on wikis.

A Vision of Students Today

This video gem is from the Cultural Anthropology Faculty at Kansas State University who have brought us so many other clever videos over the past couple of years. They asked their students to work on a shared document (sort of a wiki) and to comment on what was going on in with each of them when they were in the classroom. They filmed the results and displayed them in a thought provoking way (students holding up signs). The students' comments probably reflect many of the issues your students are facing.

Even though this video is designed more for faculty than for students, I still find it beneficial to show to my students. It gets them thinking and often sparks a good discussion about what they want to get out of my class. Often showing this video will spark student interest in using Wikis. Two free sites where students can set up Wikis are wikispaces and pbwiki.



Discussion Questions for Students:
1) Which issues from the video are you facing in your classes? What solutions would you propose to the students in the video to address their concerns?
2) Have you ever used a Wiki or Google documents to share information with a group or plan a project? Have you ever used these tools in classes at this institution?
3) Do you think you would find Wikis useful in your classwork? What about in your personal life?