Classroom Wikis

I have found creating classroom wiki pages a great way to challenge exceptional students and a great study tool for struggling students at the same time.  WikiSpaces offers a free upgrade for public school teachers, so you can create wiki pages that are secure.  You can easily create users and monitor what students post quite easily.

I have used wikis with both high school and middle school students and they both get very excited about being on the internet.  Before I have students post on class wikis, I make sure we discuss both online etiquette and plagiarism.  To first show students how to add to the wiki, I use a fill in the black template so I can model information that is important to add on the site.  As we continue to use the wiki throughout the year, I have found students develop the skill of knowing what is the essential information from our lesson each day.

Wikis are a great way to provide students who are absent access to class notes as well.  While they do take some energy to originally set up, once students are instructed about how to add to the wiki, they basically allow students to do all the work!

I also encourage students to respond to, or at least review, the discussion boards available on my class wiki.  When we don't have time to answer each question students have asked me in class, I post them for students to answer on the discussion board.  This practice has often led to some healthy competition between students in my honors class.  Many want to be the first to answer the questions themselves.  I believe students build a sense of self-confidence from contributing to classroom wikis.  I would strongly encourage other teachers to set up wikis themselves.

Here is an example of a brief discussion my students had using our class wiki: