Integrating Wikis into the Curriculum
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Using Wikis in the Curriculum

Wikis offer educators an opportunity to create a different type of web resource in which both the instructor and the student group can have equal active roles as contributors and editors. The nature of Wikis means they offer a number benefits relating to learning and teaching applications:

  • Wikis are extremely flexible allowing any site structure to be created.
  • Wikis can be used in classroom based, hybrid, and online courses.
  • Wiki functionality makes them ideal for collaborative writing applications and knowledge bases, which can be utilized across sections, terms and courses.
  • Wiki integration into the curriculum assists in transferring from instructor-centered to learner-centered educational opportunities.
  • Enables web publishing without knowledge of HTML or use of special web development tools.
  • Enables faculty to track who contributed what and when (see "Marking Group Authored Wikis" section).

There are also a few disadvantages that you may want to take into consideration before utilizing this tool in your courses:

  • Using a wiki does involve learning about acceptable editing practices (e.g. how to deal with conflicting opinions).
  • Managing a wiki can require significant time commitments from faculty and/or student moderators as page edits should be closely monitored at the beginning of the project/assignment.
  • A wiki has no predefined structure to guide new users and visitors can find navigating a wiki difficult (a hypermedia content page and/or search tool would assist with this issue.)
  • IP ownership and copyright of Wiki pages can be contentious unless clear policies are in place.

Tips for Successful Assignment Design

  • Allow experimentation time
  • Ease into it
  • Remember that collaboration is a skill
  • Create guidelines or let your students create them
  • Have an assessment plan and make it clear to the students

Preparing Students

Wikis are, by nature, easy to use. However, they do, in many cases, feature non-standard markup that can be challenging even to students with experience in other methods of coding web pages, such as HTML. It would be a good idea to provide students with tutorial or quick-start-guides that define wiki editing functions. A number of good resources can be found on the Internet or in tutorials like this one.
Most students like the ability to collaborate anytime anywhere and wikis can facilitate this type of collaboration, unfortunately the tool doesn't teach collaboration skills. Most students will not be used to having their work edited, revised, or even deleted by their peers. Dedicating some time at the beginning of the course to a low stakes, fun activity, like an icebreaker or course based treasure hunt can introduce students to the peer editing process.

 

Click on the following tabs and links to learn more
  • Planning & Design
  • How-to Tutorials
  • Resources
  • Samples

Planning and Design Considerations

How-to Tutorials

Guidelines

Articles & Blogs

 

Some Courses Using Wikis