55. What do wikis look like?
WikiTravel
WikiHow
Wiktionary
SwitchWiki
Wikibooks open content textbooks
Wikiversity: "Wikiversity is a communal effort to learn and facilitate others' learning."
Web-based social networking occurs through a variety of websites
that allow users to share content, collaborate interact and develop communities around similar interests.
Before you join, you should asl yourself a question” What do I want out of a social network?
I
It is a different kind of Web site--an almost instantly available writing space on the Web that can be created in minutes.
No knowledge of HTML coding is needed to create it because it's powered by easy-to-use, Web-based software.
A good blog should have a focus and target audience.
A wiki is a collection of web pages that can be easily edited by anyone, at any time, from anywhere.
A simple on-line database where each page is easily
edited by any user with a Web browser; no special software needed to post content
Regularly updated website
Posts appear in chronological order
Contain links, images, videos, etc.
Can be a tool for conversation
Ward Cunningham created the first wiki in 1995. His "WikiWikiWeb" lets software developers create a library of "software patterns." The name "Wiki" was inspired by the Hawaiian word wiki or wiki-wiki, which means "quick" and is often used as a term for taxis and airport shuttles. The WikiWikiWeb still exists.
Because Wikipedia is the largest and most popular wiki on the planet, we will use it as an example to understand how wikis work in practice.
If you go to Wikipedia.org and look at the home page, you'll see a welcome screen that shows you how to access different versions of Wikipedia, along with a search box.
a wiki is nothing but a collection of Web pages interconnected with each other through internal links. In Wikipedia, there are more than a million pages like this in the English version.
there are thousands of other wikis on the Internet now. As a genre, wiki sites are growing rapidly. Here are several examples:
You could use a wiki as a kind of scrapbook to collect together ideas you have on teaching, such as links to or quotes from articles you have read, as well as teaching tips and lesson plans. You could keep your own lesson plans online this way and edit and update them each time you use them. Much of this you could also do on a blog, but using a wiki gives you the opportunity to structure different pages for different topics, like having a classroom management section and a section on teaching pronunciation etc. In this way you could start to collect your own personal teaching manual and, who knows, at some point you might decide to put it live for other people to contribute to or share it with a mentor or peer to help you edit it.
You could work with a group of trainee teachers and ask them to create a wiki training manual by adding information to each section as they study on their course. You could then see how well they were assimilating the information they were learning on the course and this would give you the opportunity to revise anything they were getting wrong or misunderstanding
You could create a teaching jargon wiki. At the moment I'm working with a group of teachers and I've created an IT jargon wiki so that anyone who comes across a term they don't understand can add it to the wiki and either I or one of their peers can add a definition. They can also continue to refine these definition and add examples as their knowledge grows.
You could video yourself teaching, embed the videos, and ask for feedback on your teaching from other peers through your wiki.
You could use it to collect and share tips on aspects of teaching practice.
You could work with a group of trainers to create a teacher development course book using the wiki.
I think the possibilities for collaborative projects for teacher development are almost limitless.I've actually started up a Technology in ELT wiki here which you are welcome to get involved in. http://technogogyelt.wetpaint.comAt the moment this focuses on developing a glossary of IT related terms and definitions, giving access to teachers to ask an answer FAQs, and attempting to define key skills in IT for ELT teacher development. So if you have time feel free to get involved with this. Just register and start to contribute.I'll be very interested to see how and if this develops over the coming months. If you have any further suggestions or experience of teacher development projects using wikis, please do post a link in the comments.
Unlimited opportuinies for TEAMWORK & COLLABORATION , collaborative projects. - Wikis maximize interplay and collaboration opportunities.
>> If learning is indeed a social activity, wikis afford an opportunity for the where students and teachers are not simply engaged in developing their own information but actively involved in creating knowledge that will benefit other students.
>> Wikis permit public document construction, that is,.
Any class project with a reference or encyclopedic format, including instructions, manuals, glossaries, and the like.
>> >>
>> A class or group project with a bibliographic format. Students could gather websites related to a topic, then annotate, rank, and organize them.
>> Take collaborative notes.
>> Create an interactive course page.
>> Create an ongoing database for shareable lesson plans.
>> Student-created texts. Students build a guide to online security and privacy and are evaluated as a class. Every student has a stake in the project and will likely benefit from the instruction it contained. Students also become familiar with "textbook" English and its avoidance of personal-sounding prose.
>> A graduate student dossier.
.
>> Create a text/book.
>> Review classes and instructors :: Students at Brown University started a Course Advisor Wiki where students can collaboratively write and share reviews of courses they've taken.
>> Create a study guide :: This example is of a student created study guide for a course in educational research.