A lot of teachers use wikis for their professional development, and I personally use them for developing unit plans and extending my knowledge in specific areas (see Talia’s Internship, & eLearning Australia).

What many teachers miss out on, is using wikis in their classrooms as an online collaboration hub. Here are some of the reasons why using wikis are one of the best tools to use in your classroom.

1. Wikis are beautifully open ended- the perfect tools for a mixed ability class (and lets face it, what class isn’t?). Lower end students can be supported (even by other students) and can choose to write only a sentence of two, while higher end students can write paragraphs on any given topic.

2. Wikis use all of the basic ‘internet’ skills. There’s typing, formating (bold etc), linking within the wiki, and creating external links, basic navigation, pages and sub-pages, creating a profile, uploading photos, editing, emailing (within the wiki- to other members)… and the list goes on.

The benefit of using and learning all these things via a wiki is that it is MEANINGFUL. If you’re into the Dimensions of Learning, then this is dimension 4- Make Knowledge Meaningful, but you’re really doing 2 (acquire and integrate) as well, and can easily extend and refine (dimension 3).

3. Wikis help kids to develop research skills. To use a wiki, you first have to have knowledge/ information to put into it. Students might find this from things they’ve learnt in class, from books they’ve read, from other webpages they stumble across, or from places that they’ve actually had to FIND, and LOOK FOR. You can lead in to ‘google’ lessons and things like that really easily with this.

To add to the point, wikis also help kids to distinguish between accurate information, and information that might not be reliable- an important skill for 21st Century Learners to have.

4. Summarising Skills. No one wants to read a page of links and have no idea what they’re clicking on. Kids (and adults) need to learn to put a brief sentence after their link to share with people what it is, even just to be courteous.

Likewise, it’s not beneficial to copy and paste an entire page of someone else’s work, just because “it’s about my topic”. Use this opportunity to get your kids to break down a 4 paragraph web page, and re-write only one paragraph. It is highly unlikely that everything in the article is completely relevant to their topic anyway. And besides, one of the great things about wikis is that you can organise your information well…

5. Schematic Framework. Question: Is it better to look at one page that has all your information on it, but scrolls down FOREVER; or is it better to have an index page with 10 different subheadings, and no scrolling on each page you go to? I would definitely prefer the latter.

Wikis are a great opportunity for your students to master the art of ‘organisation’ and to build a really good understanding on their topic. If they’re looking at turtles, then make a sub page for habitat, reproduction, lifestyle, food, etc, etc. That way they can successfully write their essay/ create their poster without being confused, annoyed, or stressed.

6. Learning TOGETHER. Learning to learn together is important. We live in an age where people constantly sharing their knowledge with us (via wikis, blogs, viddler, youtube, etc). Students need to learn how to share their information, and how to receive other people’s information. You might like to have a class wiki on your unit, where students can contribute their information,and share it with others. None of this, “you copied off me” stuff!

Hopefull I’ve shared with you some reason why you should love to use wikis in your classroom! I know that I love to use them!

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