Wiki Reflection Blog

Corry A. Worrell

ELRC 4507

Wikis Reflection Blog

 

Wiki Reflection Blog

 

            One of the great aspects of learning that continue to allow students and educators alike to grow is the ability to work together.  Amongst the many different ways we can work together, wikis in particular, allows us another opportunity to align in such a capacity.  When I think of wiki, I think of Wikipedia.  It has allowed not only myself, but many people around the world to gain insight on specific subject matters.  A wiki is an online platform that allows users to edit or contribute to a document online (Pappas, 2019).  There are many individuals who dislike wikis because of the ability of its information to be edited or altered by anyone.  Despite this fact, it can still provide us with an opportunity to crowdsource information from everyone.  By us working together it can allow us to grow our knowledge base.  When we think of education, it wasn’t built in one day or from merely one person.  Many people over years continue to add to it until we have the education and learning we possess today.  In somewhat of the same way, a wiki allows users to add and grow our information and knowledge.  It’s an open environment platform that allows for everyone to be able to put their input.

            There are many advantages of wikis.  One of the many advantages for using wikis in the classroom is that it compels students to become actively engaged in the learning process versus being passive (Pappas, 2019).  In traditional classroom settings, students will often sit and listen to the teacher.  By merely sitting and listening, it can cause students to disengage and not actively think of how to use the information.  Utilizing wikis allows student to play a much more active role in learning by truly giving thought to the information they are inputting into the wikis.  This also serves as an out of box activity that can excite students to participate more intimately with the lesson.  Another idea for using wikis in education and learning, is if students are using it to create study guide pages for their class.  The class of students could continue to add and update course content for the learning benefit of everyone in the course.  This provides students with a great group project that actively engages them in learning.  Lastly, wikis can be used for more than doing projects for students.  It can be used to update parents on assignments, projects and class related topics.  With the busy schedule of educators, this provides a convenient way to keep parents updated on what’s happening in the classroom.

            

    There are many ways to use wikis to drive learning in a classroom.  One way I found interesting is 

if there is a particular subject you’re discussing in class, perhaps students can create a wiki fan page 

around a television show, movie or cartoon that relates to the subject matter.  It will be a project that is fun 

to them, while at the same time, it covers the subject matter we’re discussing in class.  Another great way 

to engage students is to have students fact check certain wiki pages (Pappas, 2019).  One of the challenges 

wikis have is that anyone can edit the information and the information on the site is not always credible.  

This exercise will allow students to do research and fact check the wiki.  I truly believe that wikis provide 

a great way to enhance the learning experience, engagement, and connection in students, parents and 

educators.