Wikis+in+academia

=Wikis in Academia=

Many campuses around the country are battling with the implementation of wikis in the classroom. A we have witnessed in Com 630, wikis can be just as valuable a tool in the classroom as it is in any other setting. As mentioned in the article __[|Teaching, Learning, and Other Uses for Wikis in Academia]__, wikis can have limitless uses in the classroom setting. Some of these approaches are listed below.


 * APPROACHES TO IMPLEMENTING WIKIS IN THE CLASSROOM**

Instructors want students to journal for a number of reasons: to demonstrate writing proficiency, to expose understanding (and misunderstanding) of conceptual knowledge, to establish the habit of regular reflection, and to engage in meta-cognitive reflection, to name a few. The wiki allows students to journal for their own benefit, or for peer or instructor review.
 * Approach 1: Student Journaling**

By enabling students to collect and organize digital assets such as course notes, images, Web resources, and PowerPoint slides, the wiki can help learners to make connections between and among those assets.
 * Approach 2: Personal Portfolios**

In the more classic use of the wiki, groups can use the environment to create a shared knowledge base of information. This can be used to allow students to develop a project in small groups, to work on a small piece of a larger class project, or even to have students themselves create and maintain the course Web site.
 * Approach 3: Collaborative Knowledge Base**

The wiki allows multiple collaborators who are separated by physical space to collect ideas, papers, timelines, documents, datasets, and study results into a collective digital space. Researchers can also use the space to store draft files for their papers: MS Word, LaTEX, or even writing directly into the Web pages of the wiki. Additionally, funders and junior researchers can be given "read only" access to all or certain parts of the space.
 * Approach 4: Research Coordination and Collaboration**

As departments become increasingly creative in their efforts to accommodate more students in a distributed/blended learning environment, curricular coordination among faculty and T.A.s gets increasingly important. The wiki allows for departmental personnel, instructors, and teaching assistants to organize common course assets, such as syllabi, office hours, and assessments, without having an endless email chain or difficult to schedule face-to-face meetings.
 * Approach 5: Curricular and Cross-Disciplinary Coordination**

Many departments, schools, and scholarly centers at the university have academic conferences and colloquia. By allowing presenters and attendees access to add and edit content, the conference wiki can serve as a resource before, during, and after the event itself. The wiki can also be used by conference administrators as a means of organizing the event. Wikis can prove to be highly effective tools, taking classroom collaboration to the next level.

SOURCE: Higdeon, Jude. //Teaching, Learning, and Other Uses for Wikis in Academia//. November 2005. Web. Nov. 2011.