Making Wikis Work For You

-- Fast

Dr. Lesley Farmer

California St. Univ.

Long Beach

Criteria for Choosing Technology Teaching Tools

Content Authenticity Ease of use Versatility Relevance Interest Constructivism Assessment

Wiki (wiki): Fast Web

Collaborative web pages without markup language knowledge

Started in 1995 by Ward Cunningham (sitting at the airport wanting to make a web page fast…)

More than Wikipedia

http://www.commoncraft.com/video-wikis-plain-english

Wiki Features

Anyone (permitted) can edit (history kept) Insert text, images, sound, video, links, pages Tags Frames/sidebars Email/RSS feed Export Statistics Levels of privacy

Choosing a Wiki

By objectives: what you want to accomplish By features By ease of use www.wikimatrix.org to compare Popular wikis: pbwiki, wikispaces,curriki,

seedwiki, mediawiki, pmwiki, socialtext, xwiki,twidi. wetpaint

Skills, Knowledge, Dispositions

Knowledge synthesis and generation Communication skills: Writing, media Collaboration Information literacy Technology literacy Organizational/management skills … and student engagement

Uses

Knowledge management Group projects Point of view study Planning (learning activities, units, grants) Lists/bibliographies Literature circles Text commentary Case studies

Wiki as Peer Review Tool

Management

Student comments/peer review Monitor use – and delegate Responsible use (history tracks) Use of tags