Wikis are an increasingly popular Web 2.0 tool being used for educational purposes, but wikis are also a tool that can be difficult to understand at first. Read on to learn more about what a wiki is, how you might use a wiki in your teaching, and where you can go to setup a wiki.
What is a Wiki?
A wiki is a special kind of website where the content of the site can be contributed and modified by many people. Wikis can be publicly available websites with hundreds of contributors, but they can also be private web sites with only a handful of contributors. Wikis are inherently about collaboration and communication and can be a powerful web based tool for people to work together asynchronously.
Wikis vs. Blogs? Faculty frequently ask me about the difference between a wiki and a blog, (perhaps because the terms have been so frequently bandied about in instructional technology contexts.) A blog is a tool where a select group of people, the authors, communicate with many readers, though the readers have the option to leave comments for the authors. An important difference in structure is that a blog is usually formatted like a journal, with content divided into separate entries that are organized by the order they are posted in. Though readers of a blog can leave comments on these entries these contributions are inherently distinct from the content created by the blog authors. A wiki is organized more like a traditional website with pages linking to new pages which link to yet more pages. Most importantly, with a wiki the readers can also be authors, contributing to the content on the wiki. Contributing to a wiki can take the form of creating new content or editing and organizing the content provided by other authors. Many proponents of wiki consider the shared authorship of wikis to be their most powerful and important feature, though this form of authorship can have advantages and disadvantages.
Though wikis have been around since the early days of the web, they have become particularly popular in the last few years spurred on by the well know (and perhaps infamous) Wikipedia, as well as the development of user friendly wiki tools that are making their way into classrooms.
When Might I use a Wiki?
A wiki is a good tool for for having student collaborate to build a web based resource or to plan a group project. I have seen wikis used by student groups to plan research projects and presentations as well as being used in cases where the construction of a wiki about a particular topic is the goal of the group project. Wikis are also being used at the course level to collect and organize information and resources that students want to share with other students. Some instructors have students contribute to a new wiki on a given subject each time a course is run, others have students in a new semester build off of and add to the wiki contribution from a prior semester. A wiki might be a tool that you ask student to use for a specific project, or simply to point them in the direction of when you assign group work.
For a specific example of a wikis being used in a UMass Amherst Course, check out our earlier blog post spotlighting Lisa Scott’s use of wikis for group projects.
How do I set up a Wiki?
At this time there is no official UMass Amherst wiki sevice provided by OIT. Some department have wikis available, but there are also many free wiki services available on the web. A good number of instructors that I have spoken with use PeanutButter Wiki, also known as PBwiki, a free wiki service known for being very user friendly (“as easy as making a peanut butter sandwich”). PBwiki includes some helpful instructional video materials that are convenient for providing to your students who might want to use PBWiki. In addition to being free, PBwiki allows for the construction of both public and private wikis.
Where can I learn more about Wikis?
7 Things You Should know About Wikis (PDF) from the Educause Learning Iniative
Wikis in Plain English (YouTube Video) from the CommonCraft Show
Atomic Learning Instructional Videos on Wikis
Your Experience with Wikis?
Have you used a wiki in your teaching or research? What has the experience been like for you and your students? Do you know which type of Wiki you used? Leave us a comment to share your wiki related experiences with other readers.