Why use wikis ?

One of the questions I saw streaming past in the quick, quick paced Wild Wiki session by Sue Waters this evening was the question of why use wikis at all? Why not a webpage? Why not a blog? Why, indeed, not paper or book?
I use wikis in my classroom for learner collaborations. Not only do I want learners to know how to use the tool, but I want them to use the tool to create artifacts with other learners. At this point in the year, those learners are not even in our school. It is important to model global connections, communications, and collaborations. Wikis are one way we do this.
Wikis are great for groups, either synchronous or asychronous, especially because no learner can get away with riding on other's coattails. All names must appear in the wiki history and because there is a history with a timestamp - it saves me time. As a teacher, librarian, and who knows what else (not to mention what I do outside of work), I am all about saving time.
What do you think?

Tags: suewaterswikis

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Sue Waters on May 14, 2009 at 3:10am

Thanks for raising this question Durff because with some many people in the room the chat was incredibly fast pace and it was easy to miss much of that chat. As you point out "Wikis are one way we do this". It will be interesting to hear people talk about which tools they use to achieve different outcomes.

Permalink Reply by Sandra on May 14, 2009 at 4:00am

Accurately assessing the contributions of individuals to group projects has been troubling. I appreciate a method of clearly delineating who did what.

I also like that I have a record of what I taught and when. It looks like this record will save an absent student and me a lot of time.

I'm sure I'll find more benefits as I go (just getting started) but these are two that I can see from here.

Permalink Reply by Sue Waters on May 14, 2009 at 5:25pm

Can I ask a question Sandra? How do you find using the history tab for assessing the contributions of individuals to group projects?

Permalink Reply by Derrall Garrison on May 14, 2009 at 2:22pm

I agree that being able to see who contributed and who didn't to group projects as well as seeing when work is completed is helpful in understanding how and when a project was completed. It provides good feedback to the teacher not only for assessment but for how the process of creating and researching for content is progressing. I also find as an upper elementary teacher that using a wiki allows students to feel a sense of accomplishment, "geekiness" if you will when they can proudly say "I made a web page." I also teach students how to look at the page both with and without formatting so they can begin to understand the markup language and can debug formatting issues with their pages. For teachers wanting to move to more of a collaborative environment in their classroom a wiki is structured to foster this by the way it is organized and content is created. It allows for media to be easily embedded be it photos, videos, or other visual media, and has discussion areas for each page that are safe and are usable only by the members of the wiki if that's what the teacher chooses.

Permalink Reply by bryan plymale on May 14, 2009 at 10:29pm

i'm sold! the ability to monitor learner collaborations is enticing. i'm actually envisioning a wiki that also uses elements of blogs and social networking media where students are not only building a site on a given topic, say 'child labor here in south india' with original content but are also searching, connecting and commenting on articles, blogs and other wikis. ideally i'd like to be able to monitor what each member has contributed but also what each student has commented on, like a comment/reflection log? and of course all this with minimal reliance on mark-up language and formatting bugs. any and all ideas appreciated!

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