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U N I V E R S I T Y O F P I T T S B U R G H |
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| Vol. XII, No.1 | A newsletter devoted to the support of teaching and learning at the University of Pittsburgh |
Sept. 2006
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U N I V E R S I T Y O F P I T T S B U R G H |
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| Vol. XII, No.1 | A newsletter devoted to the support of teaching and learning at the University of Pittsburgh |
Sept. 2006
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Wikis Provide Space for Collaborative Online WritingBy Piotr Konieczny, Graduate Student, SociologyOf all the new technology-related buzzwords currently making the rounds on campus, one of the most significant is “wiki.” Wikis, as introduced several years ago by the best known wiki, Wikipedia, represent a continuation of the Internet revolution which started barely a decade ago, and which gave us now indispensable tools like e-mail, Web pages, and Blackboard. As Web sites that allow anyone to publish and edit content, wikis offer a potentially valuable supplement to your current online endeavors. Since they are free, relatively easy to learn, and do not require the download of any software, they are extremely accessible and user friendly. Therefore, your students can quickly learn to use them and start or expand any wiki page or site. Additionally, with wiki technology it is very easy to track work in progress, noting how much each individual in a group has contributed. When you decide to spend a few minutes and experiment with wikis, you can create a free account on one of many hosting services (“wiki farms”); but you can also consider joining the largest project related to “using wikis as a teaching tool.” At Wikipedia—the free and collaborative wiki-encyclopedia, now the largest encyclopedia in the world and among the top 20 most popular Web sites online—a growing number of participants from around the world are taking part in the “Wikipedia: School and university projects.” Edited as easily as any other wiki, Wikipedia, provides you with almost limitless options. For example, students can be asked to reference an unreferenced article, improve the content or style of a poorly written one, translate an article from a wiki in another language, or create a completely new, encyclopedic article for their assignment. In doing so, students will be introduced to the helpful Wikipedia community and discover that the task of writing an article is not only a “must-do assignment” but something millions of people do “just for fun.” Finally, one of the most important benefits of having students edit a wiki is having them realize that others will benefit from their efforts. An incredible amount of creativity is wasted when students’ papers are discarded after being graded—submitting their work to a wiki preserves that creativity, provides the opportunity for adjustment and improvement, and makes that work accessible.
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A newsletter devoted to the support of teaching and learning at the University of Pittsburgh |
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