The Wiki Way: Using Wikis to promote collaborative learning

Source: http://www.austriamusik.at/images/Puzzle.jpg

Traditional learning environments are often characterized by one-way knowledge transmission processes in which the teacher, as the only source of knowledge, assigns a learning activity that is carried out autonomously by the student. Wikis as a form of collaborative learning implie a change in the roles of the instructor and students because knowledge is enhanced by both, the instructor and the peers.

Collaborative learning activities can include collaborative writing, group projects, joint problem solving, debates, study teams, and other activities. In a wiki-based learning scenario, participants co-write and co-edit web pages. Students learn expressing their questions, pursuing lines of inquiry together, teaching each other’s and seeing how others are learning (Stahl et al., 2006).


Wikibooks, Wikiversity, Wikiquotes, Wikitravel or Wikipedia are just view examples for worldwide known wiki platforms.


Usage of wikis in educational settings
A wiki is based on the two simple functions EDIT and SAVE. Therefore, a Wiki software is very flexible, and can be adapted to a wide range of learning environments and to various educational levels.
Wikis can be used for

• the development of research projects, with the wiki serving as ongoing documentation;
• the creation of summaries of thoughts from the prescribed readings, building a collaborative annotated bibliography on a wiki;
• the publication of course resources;
• the use of wikis as a knowledge base, enabling teachers to share reflections and thoughts regarding teaching practices;
• the use of wikis as map concepts (e.g. for brainstorming);
• the use of wikis for presentations, which students can directly comment.
  
  (Source: Duffy and Bruns, 2006)
  
  

EU Project WikiSkills
Within the European project WikiSkills die Berater^®promotes innovative pedagogical approaches to foster digital literacy, as well as social skills, writing skills and critical thinking.

Wikis foster creativity and enable the transfer of knowledge and provide a common web space for trainings, projects or whole organisations.

The European project WikiSkills aims to analyse and apply benefits of adopting a wiki-culture to promote lifelong learning opportunities.Therefore the WikiSkills consortium will develop, test and implement a wiki training to teach educators how to make the best use of wikis.


Videos on how to use wikis can be viewed on the WikiSkills webpage www.wikiskills.net