Learning and Leading - February 2012

Collaborative Learning through Wikis

during my 10+ years of teach- ing, I have seen how excited students become after accomplishing learning goals with the help of their peers. If you aren’t using collaborative online tools in your classroom, one way to get started is by using wikis, which are ad free for teachers if you sign up at Wikispaces for Educators or PBWorks for Educators.

Educational sites allow students to collaborate in real time with their peers via audio, chat, and video. Their creations—presentations, research reports, stories, websites, videos, and podcasts—can be posted online and become part of another person’s learning process.

Put Wikis to Work

Many schools may have a free school website on their servers, but wikis allow for more collaboration and participation by both students and teachers. A wiki allows learners to add, edit, and revise information on the site. And by embedding free widgets and tools, educators can bring a social networking aspect to the curriculum. Think of a wiki as a virtual classroom where learning takes place seven days a week because students can contribute their ideas from anywhere with an internet connection. They can also consume the information they choose using the medium they prefer. In this way, a wiki also helps students personalize and take responsibility for their own learning.

Learn from Social Networks
Students already use social networking
sites, such as Facebook, to share infor-
mation and learn from each other. So
when creating your wiki, it is impor-
tant to mimic the design and features
available on popular social networking
sites to enhance communication, shar-
ing, and collaboration.

Give Students Choices You can also allow your students to decide how they want to brainstorm with each other. Some will use chat, which you can accommodate by embedding a chat widget. Others may want to collaborate through a forum. Wikispace templates already include a discussion forum page, and PBWorks will allow you to embed one. Students may want to collaborate on a Google Doc or through mind-mapping tools, which you can embed in a wiki using HTML code.

Embed Collaboration Tools You can easily embed widgets in a wiki by clicking Edit and then choosing from a menu of tools. Or you can select the HTML and paste the embed code. Here are a few tools you can embed to make your wiki support collaborative and participatory learning:

Wallwisher. This is a wall where students add digital sticky notes of text, images, audio, video, or links. You can embed the entire wall in a wiki page so students can easily offer tips, opinions, video recordings, or ideas on any topic. For example, if students are researching a topic, they can report their findings on the Wallwisher.

Twtpoll. This poll allows students to survey each other on various topics. Twtpoll has a nice layout when embedded in your wiki and shows a pie chart of the answer after students vote.

Photopeach. This is a multimedia tool that looks like a slideshow. In addition to using it to create a presentation with music and images, students can create animated quizzes about specific topics or vocabulary.

Fotobabble. This is a great tool for sharing personal stories quickly and easily. Students narrate the images they upload. They can even create their stories using their iPhones if they’ve downloaded the free app. Students can narrate a specific point in history or introduce themselves to their peers. Add a comment widget so peers can leave feedback.

Google tools. When students collaborate using docs, spreadsheets, presentation slides, and forms, they can embed them on the wiki. These documents continue to stay open to editing. Using Google Forms, students can survey others’ work, then view the results in various charts and graphs.