Information+on+Wikis

As we all know, this isn't a real class wiki, but it is designed to give us some idea of what wikis can do for us, as teachers. This example wiki contains many of the features that wikispaces offer educators, but not nearly all.

First, wikis are a space in which everyone can easily collaborate. Students and teachers can write, comment, reply and revise freely. Unlike blogs, which offer a fairly limited ability to communicate interactively, wikispaces are perfect for digital classroom interaction. Wikispaces also give a class the opportunity to share the space together at the same time, allowing multiple writers for maximum real-time collaboration.

Additionally, wikispaces:


 * allow a class to have a separate space of their own, that they may choose to make entirely public - enabling digital publication of final drafts - or may choose to keep private and therefore more personal.
 * allow each student to have their own page, a space that is entirely theirs. A teacher may choose to encourage the students to comment on each other's page or may ask that comments are saved for the discussion page. Each page of the wiki has the potential to have a separate discussion page, where all classmates can comment on the student's personal page.
 * give the teacher control over the discussion space. Since there are a wide variety of functions that a wikispace can take on, a teacher might choose one set of functions over another and ask that the class follow instructions concerning that format. Additionally, the teacher might decide that a different set of functions work better for another class and might instruct that class differently.
 * never delete anything. This is particularly relevant for several reasons:
 * A teacher can see all of the revisions made by each student and the time at which they were made, allowing for easy assessment of the timeliness of each student, whether commenting or writing on their own page.
 * Students can no longer say that they lost their homework or that their computer erased it the night before. Even if these reasons for a missing assignment were true, the information is still contained on the wikispace.
 * If a student decides that they like their first draft better than their revision, then they can easily access the history and revert back to the first draft. This makes the revision process easier and more accessible.

According to Tori Haring-Smith, there are three different types of collaborative writing - serial, compiled and coauthored. The use of wikispaces in the classroom supports all three.

Serial writing occurs when many students add small parts to a page in order create a larger document. This might be used for reports or the like.

Compiled writing occurs when many students add their own discrete work together. This might occur if a class was to want to create a final project, such as an index of poetry, and could easily lend itself to digital publication on a larger scale than the classroom.

Coauthored writing occurs when many students contribute to a piece, unifying their voices into one voice. This might occur with something like a poem, where each student contributes one line.

The bottom line is - wikispaces are places for students to collaborate on writing in way that allows for advancement of digital literacy and potential publication. They can serve almost any function, as long as that function is collaborative!