what works better than wikis in a course

by Prof. Noble Predovic Jr. 4 min read

What is a wiki version of a course?

Blog. Wiki. Forum. Definition. An online journal (web log), diary or news column with posts in reverse-chronological order (latest first) and options for readers to comment. An easily-edited set of one or more linked web pages that readers can add to or modify. Facilitates collaborative content creation.

Are wikis useful in higher education?

What is a wiki and how do I use it?

How can I improve the quality of a wiki?

Although the site is still in beta form, it is quickly becoming a popular alternative to Wikipedia, one that Sanger feels will "probably succeed". Encyclopedia Britannica Online When it comes to trusted and unbiased facts, this site is your best option.

Are wikis still relevant?

Wikis have become an increasingly popular form of technology use in classrooms. Educators and teachers are using Wikis as an effective teaching and learning tool to enhance the learning process. Collaboration is an important part of teaching and learning. And Wikis can facilitate collaboration.Feb 6, 2020

What are the disadvantages of wikis?

Main Disadvantages of Using a Wiki as Knowledge BaseThe software can be too difficult for non-technical users to on-board.You have a limited search function.Sharing information outside your wiki is almost impossible.As anyone can make changes in your content, you can't maintain consistency in your knowledge base.More items...•Dec 13, 2021

What are some concerns about using wikis in the classroom?

3 Challenges to Wiki Use in InstructionChallenges (with benefits) ... Creating Meaningful Assignments: Motivation. ... The Assignments Is Moving and Not Closed (Dynamic, Not Static) ... The Assignment Requires Participation. ... The Assignment Uses the Participation To Move Forward. ... Grade Value for Constructed Input: Affirmation.More items...•Feb 11, 2009

What is the difference between wiki and Forum?

In a wiki, an article's publication date matters less, because articles are updated as new information becomes available. It is always a work in progress. Forum posts can be presented in chronological order of posting to the forum, or chronologically within a thread, which makes it easier to follow a conversation.Nov 2, 2021

What is advantage and disadvantage of wiki?

Wikis are instantaneous so there is no need to wait for a publisher to create a new edition or update information. people located in different parts of the world can work on the same document. the wiki software keeps track of every edit made and it's a simple process to revert back to a previous version of an article.Jan 29, 2010

What are three benefits of using wikis?

offer web page features – images, links and control of content. allow users to edit any pages or to create new pages. allow for easy linking between different pages, files and external sites. involve users in an ongoing process of creation and collaboration that constantly changes the website landscape.Sep 24, 2012

How wikis help you to your studies?

Using a wiki helps students spend time on solving problems outside of the classroom in a motivating collaborative environment. Publishing in a wiki gets students aware of the fact that they are writing for an audience, which usually results in using common mathematical language and formulas instead of plain English.

What is wiki used for?

A wiki is a collaborative site where users can add, edit or remove content. From fansites to encyclopedias, wikis are one of the most popular ways to read, write, and share information online.Sep 23, 2021

How does a wiki work?

A wiki allows a group of people to enter and communally edit bits of text. These bits of text can be viewed and edited by anyone who visits the wiki. That's it. What it means is that, when you come to a wiki, you are able to read what the wiki's community has written.Jul 13, 2005

How is wiki different from blog?

A useful wiki is one that is encyclopedic on the topics it contains. In tone, while a blog tends to be more casual and approachable, wiki content is straightforward, informative, and often more formal. You can usually tell the stamp of a writer's style when they've written a good blog post.Apr 29, 2020

Is a wiki a collection of forums?

Wikis are effective for collaborative writing, self-service web page creation, and shared maintenance of information. An example of a wiki page: A forum is threaded discussion, also known as a bulletin board or listserv, which is a many-to-many form of communication.Jul 31, 2019

What is the difference between wikis blogs and podcasts?

The word 'blog' is a contraction of 'Web Log' – an online Web journal that can offer a resource rich multimedia environment. Podcasts are repositories of audio and video materials that can be "pushed" to subscribers, even without user intervention.Aug 15, 2006

What are the advantages of wikis?

Advantages of wikis include: Support many forms of media, including URLs, photos, videos, and music. Offer a highly useful resource for teamwork and conversation at a low cost. Foster collaboration between teachers and students in the design and implementation of uncomplicated webpages.

Why are Wikis useful?

For this reason, they are useful for a number of synergistic educational activities, including study guide creation and collaborating on group presentations and assignments.

How can wikis be used in a classroom?

And Wikis can facilitate collaboration. Wikis can be used to engage learners in learning with others. In the traditional classroom setting, teachers provide most of the classroom information. With wikis, students can collaboratively create a great deal of that classroom information.

Why do we use wikis in the classroom?

Using wikis in the classroom allows for a unique online experience for students. It basically allows them to exercise control. By allowing more authority over the outcome of a project or assignment, teachers can encourage students to produce content rather than just consume it.

How do Wikis help students?

Wikis can increase educational productivity: Wikis support collaborative learning because Wikis can enable groups of students to work together to solve a problem, complete a project, etc. Using Wikis effectively may help your students reach Bloom’s higher-order skills, e.g., creating, evaluation, etc.

What are the benefits of wikis?

We believe that wiki technology offers a number of potential benefits for administrators, students and instructors, including the ability to share information online, to construct knowledge together, to facilitate collaboration and to enable social learning and peer feedback.

Why is wiki important in a classroom?

Using wikis in the classroom allows for a unique online experience for students. It basically allows them ...

What are the benefits of wikis?

Bold cites benefits of wikis including ease of collaboration (“A collaborative workspace that can display documents immediately, with a minimal working knowledge of HTML tags”) and ease of use (“wikis require little to no institutional support, financial or technical”).

Why do we use wikis?

Using a wiki helps students spend time on solving problems outside of the classroom in a motivating collaborative environment. Publishing in a wiki gets students aware of the fact that they are writing for an audience, which usually results in using common mathematical language and formulas instead of plain English.

What is the difference between a wiki and a blog?

The difference between a wiki and a blog is that wikis are designed for collaboration among groups of users.

What is a wiki in college?

A wiki is a collaborative tool that allows students to contribute and modify one or more pages of course related materials. Wikis are collaborative in nature and facilitate community-building within a course. Essentially, a wiki is a web page with an open-editing system. Wikis in Plain English is a short movie describing what a wiki is ...

What is a wiki used for?

When to use a wiki. As you’re beginning to see, wikis are ideal for group projects that emphasize collaboration and editing. Some common uses include: Mini research projects in which the wiki serves as documentation of student work.

What is a wiki in teaching?

According to a recent Essay on Teaching Excellence, wikis provide a vehicle for exercising most, if not all, of Bloom’s ‘higher order thinking’ activities. In many classrooms, the instructor provides most of the course content. With wikis, students have an opportunity to create – together – much of the course content.

Who is Derrick Higginbotham?

Associate professor of English at Barn ard, Derrick Higginbotham, used his course wiki as a presentation space and tool for text analysis for students. His course assignments included a close reading of texts within the wiki followed by student discussion in the discuss section of the wiki page. In the discussion section ...

What are some alternatives to Wikipedia?

If you are looking for a different kind of online encyclopedia, try the seven alternatives to Wikipedia listed below. Scholarpedia. Scholarpedia is a site made from the same MediaWiki software as Wikipedia. It almost appears like a mirror site, but there are some significant differences. Scholarpedia is written by, you guessed it, scholars.

What is a conservatoriapedia?

Conservapedia. Conservapedia is a conservative, Christian-influenced wiki encyclopedia that was created as a response to Wikipedia's alleged left-wing bias. The information found on this site is free of foul language, sexual topics and anything else deemed offensive by the site's editorial staff.

What is Infoplease encyclopedia?

Infoplease. Infoplease is a free online encyclopedia that is a part of Pearson Education, the largest educational book distributor in the world. All of the information found on the site is gathered from trusted sources, such as the Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia and the Random House Unabridged Dictionary.

What is OEDB.org?

OEDB.org is an advertising-supported site. Featured or trusted partner programs and all school search, finder, or match results are for schools that compensate us. This compensation does not influence our school rankings, resource guides, or other editorially-independent information published on this site.

Is Uncyclopedia a spoof of Wikipedia?

All Conservapedia users are asked to follow the site's seven Commandments. Uncyclopedia is an ambitious spoof of Wikipedia. It could be seen as an over-the-top response to Wikipedia users, also known as "Wikipedians", who seem to take the site much too seriously.

Is Wikipedia a popular website?

Wikipedia is one of the most popular Web sites in the world, with mirror versions available in 251 languages. However, due to faults in its open-content structure, Wikipedia's influence has been a menacing one at times. For example, on March 10, 2007, comedian/actor Sinbad was falsely reported dead on his Wikipedia entry.

Is Encyclopedia Britannica free?

The only drawback to this site is that it isn't free. To have full access to Encyclopedia Britannica Online, one must pay a subscription fee of $69.95 a year. This is a sound investment for students, however, as the yearly fee is substantially cheaper than buying the encyclopedic set in book form.

How do wikis help students?

In general, wikis, blogs, and discussion boards can help students engage more actively with the material, with their classmates, and with you as the instructor. Specifically, they can provide opportunities for students to: Respond to course material as preparation for class. Start or continue discussion outside of class.

What is a discussion board?

Blogs, wikis, and discussion boards are web-based platforms through which students can create and share content as well as interact with each other and the instructor. There is quite a bit of overlap in the feature sets of these tools, however, how they tend to be authored, organized, and used offer distinguishing characteristics.

What is reverse chronological order?

video, images) and external links. Can be made open to comments by visitors. Reverse-chronological order of entries by author; is searchable, provides tagging and categories to support organization and search; can be comprised of multiple pages with defined navigation.

What makes a wiki different from other websites?

The important part of wikis—what makes them different from any other type of website—is collaborative editing by the users. Think about that for a moment: the ability for the users of a wiki to collaboratively edit it. If you can read it, you can edit it.

Why is a wiki important?

The wiki becomes a consistent place to put business policies, best practices, standards, and guidelines. All the things that you've learned over time, a new employee can benefit from right away just by reading the wiki. You can stop worrying about teaching the same thing over and over again.

How to make a wiki?

So, in a nutshell, wikis: 1 Make it quick and easy to write information on web pages. 2 Facilitate communication and discussion, since it's easy for those who are reading a wiki page to edit that page themselves. 3 Allow for quick and easy linking between wiki pages, including pages that don't yet exist on the wiki.

Why do we need a wiki?

With a wiki you can help your salesmen keep track of their sales numbers, client information, or sales tips and tricks, all in one convenient place. And you can set up your wiki so that it's accessible to them when they're out in the field, from any type of mobile device.

What is a natural to do list?

A natural to-do list, if you will , one that automatically makes the original project better when the tasks are completed. These two aspects of linking within wikis come together into something more special than your average hyperlink. They help facilitate growth within the wiki.

Can a wiki be edited?

But the wiki allowed for something else unique: anyone who could read a wiki page had the ability to edit that wiki page . In its most open sense, a wiki is editable by any visitor.

Is it easier to write in a wiki than hand writing?

It should be faster and easier to write and edit text in a wiki than hand-writing HTML code. The wiki syntax—which is somewhat similar to the now-popular Markdown syntax—is designed to help decrease friction when writing and editing wiki pages, which in turn helps users to write and edit more frequently. 2.

What happens if you time a wiki assessment later in the course?

If you time a wiki assessment later in the course, issues around grading may arise. Wikis can look bland. Set design standards in the learning outcomes and assessment criteria. Wikis can pose technical challenges, especially for students who may not have Internet access in their study time.

What is a wiki in school?

Wikis provide a forum where you and your students can establish collaborative dynamics. Unlike on most blogs and discussion boards, students can interact and edit their posts and contributions within a single working document. As an assessment tool, wikis provide a space for collaboration and group work.

Why use a wiki for assessment?

Using wikis for assessment gives students a collective online space where they can share their knowledge, and helps them develop graduate attributes and enduring skills in multi-modal literacy. A wiki can be an authentic task in which students develop a tangible product that can be used after the assessment.

What is collaborative writing?

Collaborative writing for a wiki allows students to see their peers' writing, and this can contribute to a shared understanding of writing processes, of the characteristics of effective reasoning and writing, and of how assessment criteria are applied to discriminate between different levels of quality in writing.

What is a wiki in writing?

Wikis are common writing and publishing spaces. Related assessment issues include students "free-riding" (sitting back and letting others do all the work), and problems with group dynamics. When you set up the group wiki: provide a clear rubric and make sure students have a clear idea of your expectations.

Why do students need an annotated bibliography?

Students develop an annotated bibliography to begin research on a topic. In the course of posting and reading others' posts, students identify others with similar research interests. At a certain point they are encouraged to form wiki groups according to these similarities.

How can students learn from a non-assessable wiki?

Feedback. Even in a non-assessable wiki, students can learn a great deal through feedback from both staff and peers as editors and contributors. Immediate reactions to their posts, edits and comments can help them both absorb the wiki content and improve their writing skills.

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Wikis

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A wiki is a collaborative tool that allows students to contribute and modify one or more pages of course related materials. Wikis are collaborative in nature and facilitate community-building within a course. Essentially, a wiki is a web page with an open-editing system. Wikis in Plain English is a short movie describing what a
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When to Use A Wiki

  • As you’re beginning to see, wikis are ideal for group projects that emphasize collaboration and editing. Some common uses include: 1. Mini research projects in which the wiki serves as documentation of student work 2. Collaborative annotated bibliographies where students add summaries and critiques about course-related readings 3. Compiling a manual or glossary of us…
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Why Use A Wiki?

  • One of the primary reasons to use wikis is because they help your students reach Bloom’s higher order skills – things like creating and evaluating. Additionally, wikis achieve many of Chickering and Ehrmann good teaching practices including cooperation between students, active learning, prompt feedback from peers, time on task, the articulation of high expectations, and support for …
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How to Get Started with Wikis

  • There are a variety of free and easy to use wikis that make it quick and easy to get started using wikis. For example, try starting with: 1. EditMe https://www.editme.com/ ​The simplest wiki solution for your business or classroom. Share content and files, capture knowledge and manage processes. 2. For some other alternative sites, please also check out some of these links;https://…
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What Does The Research Say About Wikis?

  • Research on wikis is still emerging, here we’ll provide a brief annotate bibliography of recent articles: 1. Bold, M. (2006). Use of wikis in graduate course work. Journal of Interactive Learning Research, 17(1), 5-14.In the “Use of Wikis in Graduate Course Work,” the researcher evaluates wikis as a viable tool for collaborative work. Bold cites benefits of wikis including ease of collab…
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Common Concerns

  • A common concern among instructors new to wikis (as with blogs!) is how to evaluate a student’s work. We suggest that before implementing a wiki project in your course, you develop a rubric and explain to students how you will be evaluating their contributions to the wiki. Take a look at some of the existing wiki rubrics, like this one or this one, and adapt it to fit your needs. Consider how (…
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More Resources

  • Wikis in Higher Education (A Report by the University of Delaware): http://udel.edu/~mathieu/wiki/resources/2008-5-23_Wikis_in_Higher_Education_UD.pdf Wikify Your Course: Designing and Implementing a Wiki for Your Learning Environment: https://er.educause.edu/articles/2010/9/wikify-your-course-designing-and-implementing-a-wiki-f…
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Should You Use A Wiki Or A Blog?

  • Wikis are often compared to blogs because, in many ways, they’re similar: they’re easy to edit, are used to collaborate, and each is easy to set up. The difference between a wiki and a blog is that wikis are designed for collaboration among groups of users. Anyone with the shared wiki password can edit the content on a wiki at any time. Wikis also provide discussion boards for ev…
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Ready to Get started?

  • The possibilities for using wikis to engage students both inside and outside of the classroom are immense. Don’t hesitate to contact the CFTif you are part of the Vanderbilt instructional community and would like to talk to one of our consultants about incorporating wikis into your teaching. This teaching guide is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercia…
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