Wiki, what is a wiki and how we can use it as FL teachers

What:

Wikipedia’s definition:
1. A wiki is essentially a database for creating, browsing, and searching through information.

What is a wiki’s definition:
2. Wiki is a piece of server software that allows users to freely create and edit Web page content using any Web browser.

Own definition:
3. A wiki is a page or collection of Web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content, using a simplified language. Wikis are used to create collaborative websites and to encourage community websites. The encyclopedia Wikipedia is one of the best-known wikis.


Features:

1. A wiki is not a carefully crafted site for casual visitors. Instead, it seeks to involve the visitor in an ongoing process of creation and collaboration that constantly changes the Web site landscape.

2. Common uses include project communication, intranets, and documentation, initially for technical users.

3. Today some companies use wikis as their only collaborative software and as a replacement for static intranets.

4. A wiki enables documents to be written collaboratively, in a simple markup language using a Web browser.

5. Wiki pages can be created and updated easily.

6. Wikis are featured by non-linear navigation, enabling the user to create links and hyperlinks, multimedia and so on.

Types of wikis:

• There also exist WikiNodes which are pages on wikis that describe related wikis. They are usually organized as neighbors and delegates. A neighbor wiki is simply a wiki that may discuss similar content or may otherwise be of interest. A delegate wiki is a wiki that agrees to have certain content delegated to that wiki.


So what:
Advantages: it enables cooperativeness, development of social skills, critical thinking and negotiation of meaning. As this tool is aimed to enable interactivity and sharing of knowledge, whether academic or not, students learn to work in groups, to discuss and support their ideas and points of view, endorsing previous approaches and methods that prompt individualism.

Disadvantages: as these sites are visited by whoever wants to share his/her opinions, it is said that most of the information could be altered and then it would lack of the weight and reliance academic purposes would need. However, nowadays there are several tools to avoid vandalism and not trustworthy information, like:

For example Media Wiki allows users to give an "edit summary" when they edit a page. This is a short piece of text (usually one line) summarizing the changes, allowing the users to explain what has been done and why.

Moreover, most wikis keep a record of changes made to wiki pages; often every version of the page is stored. This means that authors can revert to an older version of the page, should it be necessary because a mistake has been made or the page has been vandalized (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki).

Otherwise, wiki’s design involves an additional task to the teacher in terms of time, technology management and implementation. Then, the extended use known wikis like Wikipedia, Copernicus or Terra, rather than the creation of personalized wikis.

Furthermore, low proficiency students would not reach high levels of communicative competence.

Schools with few hours to teach English cannot use this tool inside the classroom but as extra-curricular activities or tasks, what would lead to less quality of the outcomes.



Now what: In second and foreign language learning everything that could be used to storage information serves to increase or work on memory. As Oxford (1990) claims, these kind of activities are purported to enhance direct strategies (memory), and specifically, to create mental linkages through grouping and making associations, what leads to meaningful learning. In this sense, wikis could be used to, on one side, work on memory, by for instance, creating a dictionary, a glossary or a vocabulary list about a specific topic, etc. On the other side, because of its own nature, wikis allow students to cooperate among themselves (developing social skills), and thanks to internet, they can share their products with other students around the world; what means that students can interact one with another in a real setting, not constrained by the teacher, and using language with communicative purposes.

Accordingly, wikis could be implemented within tasks, or projects, as tangible outcomes, able to be updated, able to be researched and watched for more students and parents. Personally, I would apply wikis in my foreign language classroom because they enhance negotiation processes among students (negotiation of meaning, cooperation with peers), and develop critical thinking skills; students have to transform long and complex definitions, texts, mind maps, into concise ones, these featured by their own language and contextualized examples. Thus, they (wikis) are useful tools that allow students to work outside the classroom and by themselves (as Oxford (1990) says, it encourages metacognitive strategies, by letting the student the opportunity to arrange his/her own learning).

Example of a wiki developed within a project:
- Aim: to compare and contrast American Christmas with the Colombian.
- Level: 9th through 11th of a private, non-bilingual school.
- Amount of students: 30
Students have the task to pin down differences and similitudes within this celebration; so, it would be useful and helpful for them to have the definition of each Christmas icon: the tree, the star, the stall (pesebre), the turkey, the colors red and green, etc. Moreover, it would be interesting to have a brief description of each Christmas character: like baby Jesus, Santa-Claus, Saint Nicholas, Mary and Joseph, the Three Wise Men, etc.

Finally, as these kinds of projects could be developed in a cross-curricular way, this wiki can be part of a larger collaborative project, where different classrooms or groups contribute with one specific aspect of the subject, and then they share their outcomes among them.


References
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki

- http://wiki.org/wiki.cgi?WhatIsWiki