Wikis

I was a little confused as to what a wiki was and what it is used for until I viewed this great clip called 'Wikis in Plain English' I encourage you to take a look.

After considering how wikis work I began to think of a multitude of learning possibilities that would be engaging for students while upholding the integrity of the content. An interesting idea proposed in 21st Century Learners was using a wiki to create a collaborative online history textbook. Using this tool students become responsible for their own learning by taking ownership of the textbook while being accountable to the rest of the cohort, ensuring that the content produced is accurate and of the highest academic standard. The idea of a collaborative text can be used for all ages and would lend itself to all learning areas. However, problems could arise from students overwriting others' work, posting inaccurate information, posts that aren't academic in nature, venting or other inappropriate online behaviour. Consequently, these potential weaknesses can be turned around to provide opportunties for developing pro-social behaviours in the classroom while establishing a positive learning environment by reinforcing the attitudes and perceptions of the students towards each other, the learning and the tasks undertaken. Although wikis are a valuable learning tool in the classroom, it is essential that the wiki is set up in a secure online environment such as the Learning Place where the students are protected from the public domain, allowing access only to the students and their teacher. There are many ideas for using wikis that are explored in '50 Ways to use Wikis' I can't wait to try some of these out in my own classroom soon. Here is the url for my wiki http://sheenas-e-learning-journey.wikispaces.com/ I welcome all feedback and any contributions you might like to add. Below is a screen capture of my wiki page.

Wikis Vs Blogs
The main difference between blogs and wikis is that a blog is usually authored by one person and followers can contribute through comments. Whereas wikis are more of a collaborative document that allows users to view, add to and delete information making it a totally interactive and fluid document. The most well known wiki is Wikipedia and after gaining a deeper understanding of how wikis work it makes sense now why this site is not considered a credible source.