Wikis

Wikis

            Class 5

In this class we discussed about wikis and here we have a definition provided by Parker, K and Chao, J (2007) in his work, Wiki as a teaching tool, they define wikis as a “way of communication and collaboration tool that can be used to engage students in learning with other within a collaborative environment. In this research, they state some theoretical and practical elements that make wikis an alternative to be used in the teaching and learning process. They based the use of wikis in the paradigm of constructivism, since by using wikis; students construct their knowledge by interacting with the elements involved in the learning process.

                Additionally, these authors based their work on the Cooperative and collaborative approach. They declared that the main tenet of this approach is make the learners work together and support themselves during the process, but at the same time, creating and self dependence behavior. In other words, students are able to support their classmates and ask for help when it is needed, and also, they recognize their own strength to face their responsibility in the learning process.

                Parker, and Chao affirm that wiki has many uses in the educational context, they say wikis has been mainly applied to develop and reinforce the reading and writing skills, and to develop collaborative work in class and also to develop research projects. Another use of wikis, according to the same authors, is its application as a tool in the distance education or better known as online education.

                According to some information found in Educause Learning Interactive, wikis emerged at the middle of the 90s, at first they were used by engineers and scientists to develop dynamic knowledge bases. In the same page, it reads that wikis are described as a web page which can be modified by different people who access them. Also, it reeds that wiki is a tool to promote the cooperative work. Here we have a technical definition of wikis provide by Educase Learning Interactive:

Wiki is a combination of a CGI script and a collection of plain text files that allows users to create Web pages “on the fly.” All it takes is a connection to the Internet and a Web browser. When you click a wiki page’s “Edit” link, the script sends the raw text file to your browser in an editable form, allowing you to modify the content of the page. Pressing the “Save” button sends the modified text back to the wiki server, which replaces the existing text file with your changed version for all to see. When you request a wiki page, the script gathers the corresponding text file, changes its marked-up text into HTML, turns user-selected words into hyperlinks, inserts this information into a page template, and sends the result to your browser.

REFERENCES

Parker, K. and Chao, J. (2007), Wiki as a Teaching Tool. Interdisciplinary Journal of Knowledge and Learning Objects Volume 3. Idaho State University. Pocatello, Idaho, USA.

Educause Learning Interactive (2005) 7 things you should know about Wikis