Blog post
23/05/2013 10:07 
(Image retrieved from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_of_Wikipedia)
In current times, today’s students are not as they were many years ago. The average school child has now become a digital native; an individual who is immersed into the technological world and is no longer the student the education system was originally designed to teach (Ferris & Wilder, 2006). Despite this, the need for a communication of information in classroom contexts still remains, especially between the teacher and the students. This communication has transgressed through time however the methods of how this communication is expressed have evolved. Through technology, teachers have been introduced to a variety of ways to communicate information with their students including the use of wikis and collaborative learning tools.
In the educational context, wikis are designed by teachers to create an online collaborative learning space for the use of their students to work together and discover and share key concepts and information (Wilber, 2010). Similar to IWBs and DiscoveryMissions, they work best when students are provided with opportunities to direct their own learning and I believe that they can be effective tools for utilising the technology available to teachers and students. Wikis are ideal resources for promoting the following benefits:
- Providing opportunities for students to collaborate with their peers
- Synthesising and explaining the content students have learnt through written and different forms of multimedia expression
- Publishing student work in a public format
- Allowing students to receive feedback (from the teacher and their peers) both in and out of the classroom (Maloy, Verock-O'Loughlin, Edwards, & Park-Woolf, 2011)
I think that these are excellent benefits for students to be immersed in to provide a new method of communication in the classroom. I agree with the text that argues that students feel a deeper engagement and motivation when creating work that will be contributed to a shared space which will be viewed by people other than the teacher (Maloy et al., 2011). This again allows for a more student centred approach to learning and in most cases gives students the chance to critically think about their writing whilst engaging in technology that is familiar to them.
However, although I am a supporter of these collaborative learning spaces, I believe that there are some factors that teachers should take into consideration especially in a primary school context. As ICT skills are developing throughout primary school, from beginning stages in Prep to more advanced use in Year 7, it is important for the teacher to recognise that using a wiki or other collaborative learning tool is beneficial and suited not only to their own personal teaching style but also the class’ needs (Maloy et al., 2011). From personal experience, I would prefer to use a class wiki in an upper years classroom where students have been familiarised with using technology and are also beginning to work more collaboratively through peer marking and assistance across more subject areas. This is supported by Zammit (2010) who states that studies show students enjoy their participation in wikis as it allows them to foster their own learning journey by working together with their peers and contributes to the advancement of their skills in technology.
As well as this, I believe that it is essential for the teacher to ensure that the wiki is available for use by all students; this could be done by checking if all students have computer access outside of school or dedicating more time with computers in the weekly timetable. Maloy et al (2011) supports the importance of allowing all students to have equal opportunities to engage with the collaborative learning space as otherwise some students can be severely disadvantaged and excluded from the class community. However, if the teacher has ensured that the wiki is appropriate for use in his/her classroom, it should perform as an extremely effective and motivating tool.
To conclude this post, I believe I embrace the use of wikis and other collaborative learning tools in the classroom and I can see the benefits of using such resources to motivate and extend student learning. It is a useful tool across most subject areas for students to discover and share concepts and information and works as a space that encourages togetherness and a modernised learning community within a classroom.
References:
Ferris, S., & Wilder, H. (2006). Uses and potentials of wikis in the classroom. Innovate .
Maloy, R., Verock-O'Loughlin, R., Edwards, S., & Park-Woolf, B. (2011). Transforming learning with new technologies. Pearson.
Wilber, D. (2010). iWrite: using blogs, wikis and digital stories in the English classroom. New Hampshire: Heinemann.
Zammit, K. (2010). Working with wikis: collaborative writing in the 21st century. In N. Reynolds, & M. Turcsanyi-Szabo (Eds.), Key competencies in the knowledge society (pp. 447-455). NSW: Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
