Wikis

The first thing that comes to mind when I hear the word wiki is wikipedia. Obvious association I know, but that is all I could think of. After doing a bit more research and the listening to the class presentation on wikis the other week I am beginning to understand the elements that make a wiki, and why wikipedia is a wiki. Did you know that wikis have been around since the mid 1990s, and it wasn't until two years ago that the word wiki found a place in the Oxford English Dictionary? Just some food for thought. Anyway, back to wikis.

So what makes a wiki? It is a collaboration of websites which can be edited and modified by multiple users with access to it. I like to think of it as a website version of Google Docs. Every time I have a group presentation to do or a group paper to put together I find myself setting up a Google Document where we can all collaborate simultaneously on the same document. You can see edit history, and who made what changes at all times if you have access to the document. After the presentation I discovered that wikis work the same exact way. There is also a way for the creators to see who made what changes and when those changes were made. 

Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia doing exactly that. It has multiple users pooling information to create and modify websites in order to provide viewers with information. The applications for wikis are endless, and there are many different ways that we can utilize them as teachers. I am considering creating a wiki for my class next year where I will have different pages for each of the ten chapters in our textbook. In the beginning of the year I will have students go on to provide information that they already know about the topics, and then as the topics continue they can add new information that is learned. Don't worry the editing won't stop there, they can then go back and as new topics are learned, show how there are different links between the topics and explain how different topics connect to one another. This would be a great resource for gauging how well students are really grasping all of the topics in class, and engage them outside of the classroom to continue to think about the topics.