Wiki in a K-12 Classroom

This post is 100% derived from from a Wiki page, but the information is so good, it deserves to be posted again, especially to an audience where this information is unknown:

Wikis have different applications in the K12 classroom, they are used for pedagogical, administrative and social goals. You will find here some examples of the uses of wikis and links to popular wikis and readings about those uses.

Examples of uses of wikis in K-12:

• Science Fair Projects – A wiki could be set up for middle or high school students to brainstorm ideas for and plan science fair projects. Initially it would mostly be brainstorming, posting ideas and information to back them up. As they begin to flesh out the ideas that they are interested in, small groups might form to work on individual projects, but could still contribute ideas to other projects. The teacher can act as a facilitator by offering suggestions and asking probing questions to get students to consider particular aspects in the planning of their projects. The wiki could also be used to record and organize data, and plan eventual papers/presentations.

• Collaborative Textbooks – From Edutopia (the magazine) for September/October 2004, the article “Crack the Books” (p. 14) describes the California Open Source Textbook Project (COSTP) which is an initiative to create online textbooks using wiki software and then eventually create printed copies. The founder of the project contends that most of the information in K-12 textbooks is in the public domain. The project aims to help California slash its $400 million dollar textbook budget. You can visit the project online at World History Textbook

• Student Portfolios – A wiki makes an easy shell for electronic portfolios where students can display and discuss their work with others. It would also be an excellent forum for peer editing and peer feedback to help students improve their writing skills.

• WikiOrganization – I used a local wiki on my computer to organize materials for a paper. I was able to save weblinks, documents, and quotes to the wiki and then just go to that particular page as I was writing. Finally, I linked the final product to the wiki. Wikis are a great organizational tool especially in a time when many of our classroom resources are digital and networked.

• Collaborative Understanding – If I were to teach middle school music again, I would try to use a Wiki as part of a music history/music study project for students to clarify their understanding of different styles of music. For example, back in the day, I had 2 or 3 classes of “beginners” each year. As we listened to different examples of music and of singing, I tried to help them understand how the different styles were related to each other (i.e., blues and hip hop). Using a Wiki would allow them to also share links to examples of music to support their ideas and opinions. I would then try to incorporate this project into one of our choir concerts to show that learning about music is about more than just singing or playing an instrument. (And this is based on the assumption that we would have access to computers in the school, and that the students would be able to use the computers after school if they did not have a computer at home.)

• Collaboration Between Teachers – The person I’m doing my consulting project with, after seeing our wiki and learning how they work, suggested using them for teachers to teach collaboratively, which is a use I hadn’t thought of originally but could have a lot of potential. They could work together creating lesson plans, track how the lessons are being implemented in their various classrooms, give suggestions – this could be a few teachers in the same middle school doing an interdisciplinary unit, or teachers of the same subject in distant places working on the same unit together.

• Literature Circles in Elementary School – Elementary students, particularly fourth and fifth grade in our district have Lit Circles. They all read the same book and then are required to answer questions about the material and pose questions. A Wiki would be a perfect way to integrate technology into thier Lit Cirles. Instead of sharing their thoughts on paper, they could post them to the wiki, respond to their peers thoughts or questions and best of all perserve this work for the next class to review at sometime during ther exploration of the same novel. Each of our elementary classrooms has at least two computers. ~Becky Small