Thing #8 - What in the world is a wiki?

Introduction

A wiki is a website that anyone can edit. The first wiki was developed in 1995 by Ward Cunningham, who named his project after the Hawaiian word "wiki-wiki," meaning "quick." If you can use a word processor, copy and paste, and send an email attachment, you can create a wiki.

A wiki site may be as basic as a single page containing information and links by one author, or as complex as Wikipedia, the collaborative web-based encyclopedia, containing over 9 million articles in 250 languages, written, edited and constantly updated by thousands of users.

Wikis in Plain English

Some of the benefits that make the use of wikis so attractive are:

• Anyone (registered or unregistered, if unrestricted) can add, edit or delete content.
• Tracking tools within wikis allow you to easily keep up on what been changed and by whom.
• Earlier versions of a page can be rolled back and viewed when needed.
• Users do not need to know HTML in order to apply styles to text or add and edit content. In most cases simple syntax structure is used.
• A wiki's "permissions" may be set to Public, Protected or Private.
• Public - Anyone can view and edit the pages;
• Protected - Anyone can view the pages, but only approved members may edit pages;
• Private - Only approved members (who are logged in) can view or edit the pages.
• A wiki site includes the ability to track page changes via email or an RSS feed. That's how Wikipedia vandalism/errors are corrected so quickly!
• Most wikis include a Discussion feature for each page, allowing users to leave comments or discuss page contents.

Why Wikis in Education?
Wikis encourage shared knowledge construction, as they are often built and edited by many users at once. Teachers and students can use wikis for publishing, organizing, and sharing virtually any kind of information – professional, creative or academic. Wikis are democratic tools that, implemented effectively, can enable students to take responsibility for learning outcomes, plan and make decisions, work together, publish to an audience beyond the classroom and, perhaps most importantly, teach others.

At is simplest, a wiki is a really easy way to make a website. At its most robust, a wiki is a collaborative, participatory, living, evolving content repository. (Of course, the quality of the content is what matters). Wikis can be used to support classroom learning, professional development, collaborative document writing, planning and resource-building. Essentially, a wiki is anything you want it to be.

As the use of wikis has grown over the last few years, schools, libraries, and individuals all over the country have started to use them to collaborate and share knowledge. Among their applications are pathfinder or subject guide wikis, book review wikis, professional conference wikis and even best practices wikis.

******************************************************************************************************************

Discovery Exercise:

Check out a few (say, 5-7) of the "educational" wikis below. Explore their organization and content. While there are essentially endless professional and administrative uses for wikis, we have slanted the selection towards those that include collaborative, student-produced content. As you look at the sites, consider how you might use a wiki to support student learning and/or your own teaching or professional goals. (These are not offered as the absolute best or most comprehensive wiki projects, just a variety of examples). Before you get started, read the learning activity below, so you know what your blog post will require.

• 1001 Flat World Tales - An ongoing global writing workshop emphasizing peer editing and revision. The challenge: "You are a modern Scheherazade. You must tell an 'amazing' story that keeps your King interested in order to stay alive. You will have an advantage over Scheherezade, though: you can draft and revise your story until the 'King' -- three or four of your classmates -- judge your story is good enough to allow you to survive."
  
  
• Code Blue - Sixth grade students learning about the human body open their own online "medical clinic."
  
  
• Discovery Utopias - Middle school students answer "all of the great questions" of society (What is the role of government, What is the responsibility of the individual, etc.) and come to a collaborative consensus about what a society truly needs in order to reach for perfection and sustainability. Click the Discovery Utopias link at the bottom of the navigation area (just above the visitor map) to view the student projects.
  
  
• Dr. Reich's Chemistry Wiki - Wiki site providing resources to support high school chemistry course and to showcase student projects.
  
  
• FHS Wolves Den - Site to support eleventh grade English and U.S. History classes. Hub for class lectures, essays, novels, projects, links, learning applications, discussions, and more.
  
  
• Flat Classroom Project - Award-winning global collaboration between high school students in U.S. and Bangladesh. Students studied and reported on each of the ten "flatteners" presented in Friedman's The World is Flat, using a variety of Web 2.0 tools. This is true 21st Century collaboration.
  
  
• Go West - Third graders share their learning about Westward Expansion along the Oregon Trail.
  
  
• Grazing for Digital Natives - Resources for educators about using new technologies in the classroom.
  
  
• Holocaust Wiki Project - AP World History students create "branching stories" about families in the Holocaust. "They have to come up with realistic decision points, describe the pros and cons, address the consequences of each decision, and fill it in with a narrative that reflects their research on the Holocaust." (Click Period 1, 2, 3 or 4 at the bottom of the page to view student projects).
  
  
• Kindergarten Counting Book - Photos to show each number from 1 to 100. (Wetpaint now offers ad-free education wikis).
  
  
• Math 12V Outcomes Portfolio - Twelfth grade math students create an online review for the entire math curriculum.
  
  
• Primary Math - Primary students share their math learning with students around the world.
  
  
• Room 15 Wiki - Sixth grade classroom wiki. Includes book reviews and creative works by students, as well as class information. (Click Sidebar to see links to wiki sections).
  
  
• Salute to Seuss - Elementary students celebrate Dr. Seuss by reading his books and creating an online presentation. Click Student Gallery to view the final projects.
  
  
• Schools in the Past - First graders interview parents and grandparents to find out how schools have changed.
  
  
• Thousands Project - Each month, Mr. Monson's fifth grade class posts a new question, hoping to receive 1000 responses from students and visitors from around the world.
  
  
• Turn Homeward, Hannalee - Fifth graders created a comprehensive study guide for this Civil War era historical novel.
  
  
• Welker's Wikinomics - Award-winning project supporting the teaching of AP Economics. Be sure to check out the Discussion Forum.
  
  
• Westwood Schools Computer Science - Classroom wiki for Vicki Davis' (coolcatteacher) high school computer science courses.

---

A Few Further Resources (provided for your reference)

• TeachersFirst Wiki Walkthrough - Useful overview of basic wiki features and concepts, plus lots of ideas for classroom wiki projects in many subject areas, including a specific section for younger grades.
• EDUCAUSE: 7 Things You Should Know About Wikis (PDF) - Don't let the techno-speak in #3 scare you.
• Wiki While You Work - Mark Wagner's introduction to wikis presentation from the 2006 K12 Online Conference. It's long (1 hour) but really good.
• Wiki Wisdom: Lessons for Educators (PDF) - Article from Digital Directions

A Few Sites for Creating a Wiki (provided for your reference)
In case you just can't wait to start your wiki, here are three good options, each of which offers Ad-Free, hosted wikis for K-12 Education. The features vary a bit, so you may want to investigate a bit before settling. One way to do that is to create a "regular" free wiki (ad-supported) to explore the features before asking for your educator site.

• Wikispaces for Teachers - http://www.wikispaces.com/site/for/teachers100K
• PBWiki for Educators - http://pbwiki.com/edu.pb
• WetPaint for Education -http://www.wetpaint.com/category/Education

******************************************************************************************************************

Learning Activity

Part 1

A. Read Vicki Davis' blog post Wiki Wiki Teaching about her first experience using wikis in the classroom. Do you think there may be a wiki in your future?

B. Write a blog post sharing your thoughts and observations about the educational wiki projects you have explored. Provide details/examples from at least three wikis that you actually investigated -- e.g. What did you notice about their organization, content, tools used, learning outcomes? What was missing? What could you do differently or better? In your post, please also share initial ideas you have for wiki use in classroom, professional or personal learning.

C. Be sure to include "Thing 8" in the title of your post.

Part 2:
Don't forget to check your Google Reader at least every other day this week -- remember, you are skimming and scanning for items of interest, not reading every single entry! You are always welcome to adjust your subscriptions (delete some, add new ones, etc...).

Stretch Activity
1. Check out a topic of interest in Wikipedia. Does the content seem valid, complete, well-written?

2. Visit the Discussion tab to see if there has been any conversation or controversy about the article.

3. Also look at the History tab and explore a few of the revisions.

4. Post a blog entry reflecting on your Wikipedia experience. Be sure to include "Thing 8 - Stretch" in the title of your post.