Hi Ho...It's Off With Wikis We Go

It’s nearly impossible to ignore technology these days.  Knowing and using digital technology and resources helps teachers and students succeed.  Integrating the most current technology such as wikis with your daily instruction can spark student learning.  Wikis have grown in popularity because of its ease of use, it enhances teaching, and most importantly, motivates students and keeps them on task and learning. Unlike blogs which focuses on the individual or personal interests, a wiki is an open forum for users to share ideas about a particular topic.  Wikis, like blogs, can center on personal experiences and observations, academic matter, and political topics. However, wikis allow users to create and edit interlinked web pages in order to share and create content.  Wiki web pages can be edited, deleted, or created by anyone who visits the site.  In contrast, blog comments can only be edited by the blogger, but one can comment on the content and the blogger can comment back creating a dialogue. The wiki web tool is also nonlinear allowing users to navigate, click, retrieve or submit content information.

So, just what does wiki mean?  Wiki means quick or fast in Hawaiian.  Wikis allow users to edit posts almost immediately.  Wikipedia is probably the most popular wiki used.  This “encyclopedia” is mostly written anonymously by groups of volunteers, but anyone can access the wiki to contribute text and write or make changes to the content.  When using wiki or any technology tool requiring students to post information or communicate through the Internet, it is very important to remind students to not provide personal information.  As a librarian, I am constantly making sure students are aware of being safe on the internet.  Privacy settings are available for wikis as well as blogs.  Most important, it is necessary that teachers teach students proper wiki etiquette such as writing in complete sentences and using correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation; no name calling, slang, or cursing; and be brief, stick with the facts, and negotiate and create truth.

Although there are many ways wikis can support teacher instruction and learner outcome as well as bring fresh ideas into the classroom, I have not used wikis or had any prior experience using wikis until this semester.  I would certainly like to implement this tool within instruction.  My only worry is having to constantly monitor and keep track of student postings.  With so many classes to teach and each on a different grade level, this can prove quite challenging.